1266 



EARLE V. HARDENBURG 



The method of harvesting, and the average potato acreage per farm, for 

 the four regions surveyed, is shown in table 91. It is evident that the 



TABLE 91. 



METHOD OF HARVESTING, AND AVERAGE POTATO ACREAGE PER FARM, IN 

 THE FOUR REGIONS SURVEYED 



reel digger is not popular outside of Steuben County, probably decause this 

 digger leaves the tubers in a more or less bruised and scattered condition. 

 As indicated by the figures for both Long Island and Monroe County, 

 the elevator digger was used extensively in these regions, where the soil 

 is relatively light and the fields vary from rolling to level. Growers in 

 Franklin and Clinton Counties have not used the elevator digger exten- 

 sively because of relatively small acreages per farm and an abundance 

 of large boulders, which make the use of such a digger next to impossible. 

 More than three-fourths of the crop in this region was dug by hand 

 in 1913. 



As a whole, the figures in table 91 show that the average acreage dug by 

 hand was smaller than that dug by machine, and that the average acreage 

 dug by the elevator digger was greater than that dug by any other type 

 of machine. In cases of close planting and heavy top growth, it is often 

 desirable to remove the tops from the tubers before picking them up. 

 In figure 151, a view taken in Franklin County, two men are shown using 

 forks for this purpose, behind an elevator digger drawn by four horses. 

 This illustrates the necessity of using more than two horses because of 

 the heavy draft of these machines. 



Three types of carriers were found in common use in the regions visited 

 the standard bushel slatted crate, a hamper basket, and fertilizer bags 

 of various sizes. On Long Island, the commonest carrier in Suffolk 

 County is the fertilizer bag, and that in Nassau County is the fertilizer 

 bag supplemented by hamper baskets of about a bushel capacity. These 



