The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
475 
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Lessons Jersey Potato Growers Are Learning 
Pakt II. 
r 
H 
W HAT TO DO WITH THE APHIS.—Tiny and 
inconspicuous, thanks to his protective color¬ 
ing. and selecting the safe nooks and corners on the 
undersides of the downward curling potato leaves, 
the aphis, more commonly known as the plant louse, 
during the past three years has attacked the Jersey 
potato crop in ever increasing myriads. One of the 
most rapid multipliers of insects, the few scattering 
individuals of mid-June have become 
the countless billions of July that line 
the undersides of the leaves and 
silently suck the life-blood from the 
plants. So far the average farmer has 
been almost helpless before the attack 
of these insects. Compared with the 
little green louse, the more formidable 
potato beetle is an easy problem. A 
coating of arsenious poisons on the 
leaves is of no avail, for the louse can¬ 
not eat the foliage or the poison, but 
merely inserts his beak through the 
poison layer into the body of the leaf 
and sucks out the juice. 
CONTACT POISONS.—To kill the 
aphids, then, it is necessary to hit their 
bodies with a so-called contact poison, 
i. c.. a substance that will kill them 
when it (ouches their bodies. The most 
common of such substances is nicotine 
sulphate. Mixed with water at the 
rate of 1*4 pints to 50 gallons, with 3 
lbs. of soap to cause the spray coating 
to spread on the foliage, this spray will 
control the aphis. The difficulties in 
tin* way of the more general use of 
this spray, however, are mechanical 
ones. The drooping nature of the 
potato foliage makes it necessary, espe¬ 
cially in cases where the plants are 
more advanced, to apply the spray at 
a high pressure, and with an adjust¬ 
ment of three nozzles to the row, two 
of them pointing inward and upward, 
in order to reach all the lice. The 
large amount of spray needed makes 
the mixing and preparation a big task, 
and renders this method of control 
well-nigh impracticable on large farms 
not equipped with a modern water sys¬ 
tem. Entomologists are now looking 
for a dust that will kill the lice at a 
reasonable cost. The problem is to 
find a material with which to mix the 
nicotine that Avill dilute it and cause 
it to adhere to the foliage. Certain 
finely ground clay has been found that 
will do this to a fairly satisfactory de¬ 
gree. and the prospects of finding a 
practical dust are encouraging. Dr. 
Thomas .T. Headlee, the State ento¬ 
mologist of New .Jersey, who is better 
known for his war on another Jersey 
insect—the mosquito—tried out nico¬ 
tine dusts and sprays last year. lie 
reports that dust gave as good control 
as the spray, but the dust is slower in 
killing the insects than the spray, and 
its application more expensive. 
HARVESTING WITH GASOLINE. 
—Horse power and manual labor are 
giving way to a large degree in har¬ 
vesting. hauling and marketing the 
crop. Three machines which have 
conic into common use during the last 
five years are the biggest factors in 
transforming old-style methods into 
the power operations of the present 
day—the engine-driven digger, the 
power grader and the auto truck. They 
have been a big factor, too, in swelling the produc¬ 
tion. for they have made possible the growing of 
larger acreages. The tractor, of course, is com¬ 
monly used in plowing and fitting the ground. On 
the large farm it means earlier planting, since the 
ground can be gotten ready more rapidly. The en¬ 
gine digger—a machine of the old elevator type, but 
with the elevator and shaker propelled by a small 
gas engine mounted above the mechanism, instead 
of by traction—is drawn by two horses in place of 
four, thus releasing one team for other work. Re¬ 
sides, it does a better job of digging than the old 
horse diggers, especially in loose sandy soil, or in 
wet soil, or in weedy and grassy fields, because of 
the greater and more dependable power furnished 
by the engine. 
GRADING.—Thanks to Uncle Sam’s war-time re¬ 
quirements, the Jersey growers were forced into 
adopting one of the greatest boons to their business 
that could have happened, in line with the desires 
of the more clear-headed of the growers, but much 
to the distaste of the majority of them. I refer to 
grading. Efforts had been made for years, notably 
bj the Monmouth County Farmers* Exchange, to get 
the Jersey growers to grade their product. But it 
did not seem possible to overcome the inertia of the 
abominable practice of marketing the crop as un¬ 
graded field-run. Thousands of dollars were lost 
annually by Jersey growers because Jersey potatoes 
u ere always quoted on the market at a lower price 
than potatoes from other sections. Then came the 
war. and witl) it the regulations of the Food Admin¬ 
istration, Government grades for potatoes were 
established, and the Jersey grower had no choice 
but to grade. The power grader was perfected, and 
grading proved not to be the hardship the growers 
had anticipated. Furthermore, they realized bigger 
profits from the graded product, and the better 
quality had a steadying influence on the market. 
So when the Food Administration regulations were 
lifted the growers voluntarily continued 
to grade. 'The sentiment of the grow¬ 
ers at this stage was expressed at a 
recent meeting of delegates from all 
the co-operative potato-selling organi¬ 
zations of the State when they de¬ 
clared they were in favor of continuing 
grading. 
DOING THE WORK:.—The mechan¬ 
ical grader used is propelled by a gas 
engine, or by electrical power in most 
instances, when a current is available. 
Some of the smaller graders are turned 
by hand power, but the number is in¬ 
significant. A few farmers have their 
graders mounted on trucks, which they 
haul about the field, and grade the 
potatoes as they are gathered up. More 
often, though, when the grower grades 
his crop himself, he has a stationary 
grader mounted on a platform in the 
farm yard, or in a building, and hauls 
the potatoes from the field before grad¬ 
ing. Some Monmouth County outfits 
of this sort are driven by a home elec¬ 
tric plant in cases when a public elec¬ 
tric line does not run near the farm. 
By far the most common practice, how¬ 
ever. is to grade the potatoes at the 
loading station. Local buyers and the 
farmers' co-operative marketing asso¬ 
ciations have their grading outfits, 
either mounted on platforms which 
are wheeled up in front of the freight 
car doors, or set up in grading and 
packing houses located along the rail¬ 
road sidings. Here the potatoes are 
run over the graders as they are taken 
from the farmers* loads carted in. and 
the driver is given a receipt for the 
number of pounds of •‘firsts’* and ‘‘sec¬ 
onds** found in his load. 
THE MOTOR TRUCK. — Finally, 
the motor truck has almost eliminated 
distance as a factor in harvesting the 
crop. For all practical purposes it has 
brought farms five miles from the rail¬ 
road as close to the shipping points as 
were farms only a mile distant a few 
years ago. when all potatoes were 
hauled with horses. Naturally this has 
been a great stimulus to production, 
for it has opened up large areas to 
potato growing which in former years 
were too remote for the profitable pro¬ 
duction of the crop. Stand for a half- 
hour some day in August along a road 
leading to one of the chief shipping 
points and watch the trucks roll by. 
You will see all kinds—from the little 
one-ton flivver, struggling along with 
its two-ton load, to the big truck carry¬ 
ing 75 sacks. Count the trucks, and 
count the two-horse teams, and you 
will soon see how extensively the Jer¬ 
sey potato business has become motor¬ 
ized. 
RICKING’ BY BAND.—So far the 
machine that will replace the back and 
hands of the potato picker has not 
been found. In other words, it is still 
necessary to pick up the potatoes behind the digger 
by manual labor. Certain natural obstacles stand 
in the way of the operation of the mechanical picker. 
Stony or cloddy soil, wet soil, and hilly fields, not to 
mention the presence of weeds and grass so common 
in the later part of the harvest season, would tend 
to make the operation of such a machine difficult. 
Yet the advance made in recent years in the im¬ 
provement in potato-harvesting machinery would in¬ 
dicate that the perfection of a complete potato-har¬ 
vesting machine in the next few years is within the 
realm of possibility. After all, we have the essential 
Harvesting Potatoes with Power Digger. Fig. 2ns 
Shipping Scene at a Xeic Jersey Railroad Station. Fig. 20! 
Grading and Sacking in a Potato Warehouse. Fig. 210 
