Variety Irish Cobblers Green Mountains Katahdins Sebagoes Sequoia Chippeaw Houma Others Total Acreage = Acres entered for Inspection 12,717 11,283 2,747 6,814 146 37 20 10 33,774 There were four main varieties with Sebagoes starting to challenge the long standing Irish and . Seed potato inspection also improved in the 1940s. In 1947, a Provincial Act was passed requiring the seeding of "Foundation", "Foundation A" and "Certified" potatoes only on P.E.I. The Island was the first province to inaugurate such an inspection system. Arrangements were made for a complete inspection of all potatoes; a great step forward for potato growers. Equipment for potato growing improved in the 1940s. Gasoline powered tractors came into wide usage by the late forties in the Freetown area. Tractors with familiar names like John Deere , Cockshutt, Allis Chalmers, Farmall, and Massey Harris appeared. These tractors replaced horses in hauling potato planter, harrows, ploughs, cultivators, sprayers and diggers. Also by the late 1940s the beater diggers were being replaced by a type of elevator digger built by Hoover, John Deere and other companies. The first elevator diggers would elevate the potatoes on a chain which passed over cogs designed to shake out the dirt. The potatoes were deposited on the ground and gathered by potato pickers using baskets. The baskets were dumped into a barrel or, by the late 1940s into bags. The elevator digger soon had an addition called a bagger which eliminated potato pickers and baskets. With the new system, bags were either directly loaded from the bagger on to a trailing tractor and wagon or placed on the ground for later pick up. For interest sake, the cost of various equipment in previous years is presented. 1934 1946 Harrows (3 section) 45.00 1 Ford Tractor Rake (1 horse) 40.00 2 Row Potato Planter Rake (Team) 60.00 2 Furrow Plow Plow (1 Furrow) 23.00 2 Row Cultivator Mower-Hay 65.00 1 Row Cultivator Planter Iron Age 1 row 85.00 Grain Drill Dish Harrows 145.00 Grain Binder Combine Seeder 64.00 Potato Sprayer 2 Truck Wagon 135.00 ea. 270.00 Land Cultivator ICart 22.00 Hay Rake 1 Potato Scuffler 12.00 1 Hay Mower 1 set of Disc to cover Potatoes 30.00 1 Manure Spreader 1 Grain Thresher 35.00 2 Ransome Diggers 2 Wood sleighs 42.00 1 set of Bob Sleighs 38.00 1 Potato Grader 125.00 1 Elevator Digger 134.00 1 Team work horses 255.00 1 Driving Horse 130.00 $1620.00 900.00 500.00 200.00 380.00 185.00 300.00 426.00 280.00 200.00 185.00 140.00 156.00 410.00 $4,262.00 The 1940s were generally good for potato farmers, even though potato diseases continued to attack the crops. Ring rot was becoming a serious problem and Mr. S.G Peppin and Mr. Henry MacLaren of the Potato Inspection Division recommended the late blight be kept under control with the use of bluestone (copper sulphate) and a chemical called Perenox. 49