150 The Potato 



There is no tendency, as is often the case with hand 

 planting, for the seed to become dried out before cover- 

 ing. In some sections as on Long Island there is trouble 

 with seed slightly infected with late-blight germs rotting 

 in the ground after planting. Trouble of this kind is 

 much worse where furrows are left open and the soil 

 warmed to a temperature at which the blight germs 

 develop and rot the seed. Seed which becomes dried out 

 before or after planting seldom produces as good a yield 

 as where it is allowed to keep all its moisture. The seed 

 planted with the machine planter is put in to a more uni- 

 form depth than seed in rows dropped by hand which falls 

 on each side of the center of the row and forces the culti- 

 vator teeth to be kept away on account of injury to the 

 plants which are set out of line by hand planting. The 

 seed dropped by a machine falls in a straight row which 

 is less liable to injury from cultivating tools than that 

 dropped by hand. The weeds growing next to the plants 

 are the ones hardest to kill, and a perfectly straight row 

 easily kept clean reduces the damage from weeds. It is 

 noticed that in sections where machine planters are in 

 common use the rows are usually planted close. The 

 soil in the space between the rows is so tramped by horses 

 and wheels of tools that it is of less value to the crop 

 than that in the row. The yield is increased by a larger 

 number of rows to the acre. Planters are often furnished 

 with a fertilizer attachment which applies the fertilizer 

 along with the seed. The fertilizer should be dropped 

 in a strip several inches wide and covered with soil before 

 the seed is dropped or the sprouts may be injured by 

 the action of the dissolved fertilizer salts. 



