ones I planted in my garden were early ones. Soon we
will be eating them on the table. They are not the kind that will keep
well all winter, and I am planting that kind now. I am going to win the
ten dollar prize by raising a bigger crop of potatoes than you can raise
of corn or beans, little ones," and he smiled at Hal and Mab.

Then he went on cutting the eyes out of the potatoes, while the children
watched him. They saw that each potato chunk had in it two or three of the
queer dimple-spots.

"A potato is not like other things that grow in the garden," said Uncle
Pennywait. "It does not have its seeds separate from it, as beans have
theirs in a pod, or as corn has its kernels or seeds on a cob, or a
pumpkin or apple has seeds inside it. A potato's seeds are part of itself,
buried in the white part that we cook for the table, and each potato has
in it many seeds or eyes.

"Of course I could plant whole potatoes, one in each hill, but that would
be wasting seed, so I cut the potatoes up into chunks and plant the little
chunks, each one with two or more seeds in it."

"And do you only plant one chunk?" asked Mab.

"No, I drop in two or three, according to the size and the number of eyes.
This is done so that if one set of seeds doesn't grow the other will. Now
you watch me."

Uncle Pennywait had smoothed off a nice bit of his garden where, as yet,
he had planted nothing, and into the long earth-rows of this he now began
to plant his potato seed. He walked along the rows with a bag of the
cut-up pieces hung around his neck, and as he dropped in the white chunks
he covered them with dirt by using a hoe.

"When my potatoes grow up into nice green vines, and the striped bugs come
to have a feast on them, you may help me drive the bad creatures away,"
said Uncle Pennywait to the children. "In fact some of my early potatoes
need looking after now."

"Are there bugs on them?" asked Mab, when her uncle had finished his
planting.

"Indeed there are! Come and I'll show you."

Over they went to the early-potato part of Uncle Pennywait's garden.
There, on many of the green vines, were a lot of blackish and yellowish
bugs, crawling and eating the leaves.

"We'll just give them a dinner of Paris Green," said Uncle Pennywait, "and
they won't eat any more of my vines."

"What's Paris Green?" asked Mab.

"It is a deadly poison, for grown folks or children as well as bugs, and
you must never touch it, or handle it, unless