TUBER 
107 CROPS 
your best potatoes for seed, if you plant from 
your own crop; or buy only the best varieties, 
if you must buy. But it is well to remember 
that there is always danger in potato seed raised 
elsewhere than on your own patch where you 
can watch conditions. Don’t use a potato for 
seed if it has a black thread running through it; 
a roughened or irregular circle on the skin, or 
a hollow center. Burn all such; else you will 
have diseased crops and give yourself no end of 
trouble and expense. Plant the seeds at least 
four inches deep and plow them in. The sur- 
face should be harrowed two or three times be- 
fore the plants come up, and the crop should 
have light, surface tillings five to eight other 
times during the season. 
Potatoes are planted in “ drills” or continuous 
furrows, 27 to 42 inches apart, at intervals of 
9 to 18 inches, and it requires from 8 to 18 bushels 
of potatoes to plant an acre. Most farmers 
plant too sparingly. There has been much 
book discussion as to the size of seed cuttings, 
but the most economical size is one weighing 
about three ounces or the size of a large hen’s 
egg, with at least one good eye. The potato 
cutting is food; therefore the larger the cutting 
the more food, and the more food the better 
early growth, and the better the early growth 
