The: Potato Industry or Colorado. 65 
dropped into its place in the ground. We find 95 per cent, of per¬ 
fect work quite obtainable from our leading planters of either type. 
The best picker type requires one man who absolutely knows his 
business. The other type requires a good driver and a faithful, 
quick and everlastingly patient man or boy behind. We find that 
one planter crushes the seed about the same as the other, and that 
one can do as good work as the other. The choice should be made 
according to the help available. Compare the stands obtained on 
Pearls at Parshall and Montrose with a picker planter, with those 
at Carbondale and Greeley, where the other type was used. The 
annual loss, about a quarter million of dollars, due to defective 
planters, largely a matter of easy repair, is twice the first cost of the 
2,000 planters in use in Colorado. 
5. Large and Uneven Seed. —Very large seed does not drop 
as well and is more subject to rot and always results in poor stands. 
It pays to screen seed to even size in two or three lots, and to cut 
evenly and carefully, to secure even dropping by the planter. A 
few large pieces in the hopper are a continued source of lost stand 
while they remain. It goes without reminder, that seed should not 
be sliced long but cut as nearly square as possible and always with 
good eyes in each piece. It pays to use seed weighing as much as 
two ounces to the piece, and the best stands are always obtainable 
by using whole seed of this size. 
6. Cultivation. —The close, deep cultivation required in our 
heavy and flat lands to combat disease is a frequent cause of large 
loss in stand, especially in new regions where employers do not 
realize that potato cultivation demands a high grade of skilled labor 
and the best tools, as well as accurate planting and straight rows 
evenly spaced. 
ACTUAL LOSSES BY POOR STAND. 
Part of Loss Offset. —The following table shows just how 
much of the loss in hills missing is made up by the hills to each 
side of the empty place. We find the weight made up much less 
than some growers have supposed. The first hill on one side of a 
skip, we call Firsts. The next hills we call Seconds, Thirds, and 
Fourths. 
How Affected by Distance in Rozv. —When the best distance 
in the row has been decided upon for the variety and soil, the loss 
by defective stand appears to be independent of the distance used 
in the row. 
Conclusions. —From the weight of these 802 hills dug by 
hand and carefully weighed, as summarized above, we may con¬ 
clude : 
1. Skips in some varieties affect stand to the second hill to 
