The changes he introduced to the growing of potatoes included the use of a horse—drawn potato seeder, which dropped the potato “sets” (cut portions of potatoes bear- ing the buds or seeds) into a drill, and covered them with soil; the use of chemical fertilizer; and single—crop farm- ing. His use of many workers during the whole year to prepare the soil, plant, spray with insecticides, hill the rows of potato plants, harvest and grade the potatoes, was also a “revolution” in potato growing. Neighbours were surpris- ed; some disapproved of such intensive activity in a single crop; and one even condemned the use of chemical fer- tilizer. But others remember he paid workers well; that more cars were purchased in the area after his arrival; and that he had many admirers. His example was copied by many Island farmers. In 1920 only about one-fifth of potatoes grown on P.E.I. were for seed (about 533 acres), by 1928

.. Fsoxeat AdeMulligan’s Fox Ranch (Courtesy of Gladys Mulligan)

78

Provmc1al Bank of Canada, Kinkora; Bernie Farmer in a oreground (Author’s Collection)

half of all potatoes grown were for seed (25,883 acres)!0

The price paid to potato farmers fluctuated, averaging about 95 cents per hundred pounds]1 The total farm value of P.E.I. potatoes averaged $3,808,000.00 per year in the 19205 compared with an average of $2,528,000.00 during the previous decade]2 In 1928 Island farmers had their highest acreage of potatoes, 51,900 acres and produced almost as much as in the peak year of 1924, 5,708,000 cwtl3 Fittingly the P.E.I. automobile license plates in 1928 car— ried the logo “Seed Potatoes [and] Foxes” — the Island’s two most important industries.

Fox farming had become a major source of revenue to Islanders in the previous decade. Only a few men from the five communities were involved in this industry: Wilbert McCarville and Ezekiel Roberts in Kinkora, and Aden Mulligan in Newton; however others bought shares at $100.00 each in a company directed by the merchant, John P. Smith, who bought and sold foxes]4 By the mid—19205