G. D. howe’s potato manual. 
19 
tance he plants his potatoes in the row. The man who drops the 
potatoes lias them in a basket or hag suspended from the shoulders 
and with this guide or spout in one hand he drops the potatoes 
through it, the end of the tail piece always resting on the last potato 
dropped. This little device secures perfect spacing and straight 
rows if they are furrowed straight. A second man follows with the 
fertilizer, dropping a spoonful a couple inches away from the seed 
piece, and a third man follows with hoe and covers. This spout can 
be made of round 3 in. tin pipe and I would suggest that the tail 
piece be fastened up four or six inches from the bottom to allow for 
irregularities in the bottom of the furrow. This device is not patented 
and so any who wish to make it can do so. I shall give a cut of it if 
it can be done in time to appear in the last pages to go to press. 
The recent advent of the potato planter is to the potato grower 
what the mowing machine was to the dairyman and stock feeder, 
and is destined to soon become a common farm implement through- 
out our land of progressive and labor saving farmers. 
AS TO CUTTING OF SEED 
There are about as many practical growers for it as against it and 
the pet theories of each cover all degrees of size from large whole 
tubers down to single eve cuttings. 
Here is a field for almost unlimited discussion and extended ex- 
periments. This is another place where it is hard to advise, the 
circumstances mainly, deciding the case. It would be a waste of 
money to pay a high price for a novelty in potatoes and plant whole 
tubers, and it probably would be unwise in most all cases to under- 
take to cut up fine seed which was only a little more expensive than 
potatoes to eat. On this subject the Experiment Stations have shed 
some light. Most of them agree in the conclusion that whole pota- 
toes yield more per acre than cuttings under exactly the same cir- 
cumstances. The large tuber furnishes nourishment to the young 
plant before it gets a large root development, thus enabling it to 
make a vigorous start at first ; whereas the cutting may be so small 
that it will dry up or get a week behind the other plant for lack of 
immediate nourishment and enough of it. One if not more of the 
Experiment Stations I believe has found in favor of cuttings in yield 
of marketable potatoes. Where the tests seem to be unfair is that a 
single eye is expected as much of alone by itself, three feet from a 
neighbor as of a large, whole tuber. If the tests were made with 
I exhibited at only three Fairs the past Fall, but took a 
Premium at each one, on collection of Potatoes. 
