“In the United States the growing of early potatoes for northern markets is an important industry as far south as Florida and the Bermudas; but potatoes flourish best in climates which are just too cool for corn. There is a belt of 120,000,000 acres, running from Newfoundland, maritime Canada, and New England, through New York, Pennsylvania, and the American and Canadian Lake region, and by way of the Yukon Valley almost into the Arctic Circle, where potatoes have been found amazingly productive. The giant Idaho and Montana potatoes, which often weigh several pounds, are favorites for baking. “Growing from seed seldom produces satisfactory potatoes, but seedsmen plant them in the hope of discovering new and desirable varieties, as did Burbank when he grew from seed the potato which bears his name. There are now perhaps a thousand well-developed varieties, while at the time of the American Revolution there were only two, the red and the white. In growing potatoes, the most perfect tubers should be chosen, cut in pieces and planted; the new plants grow from the eyes or buds on the cuttings. “The cultivation of the potato has played an important part in the history of Europe. In certain parts of Germany it helped to check the famines caused by the Thirty Years’ War. By 1688 it had become the staple food of the Irish peasantry, and the failure of the potato crop in 1845 and the resulting famine started the first great wave of Irish immigration to the United States.” “I was reading an old poem about that Irish famine the other day,” said the boy named Billy, “where a little boy was begging his mother for just one grain of corn--I felt so sorry for him, but I can see now that he suffered hunger so that all the other children in the world might have good food all their lives--I hope someone gave him a nice hot baked potato before he got too hungry. There’s the dinner gong--Hurrah for the Irish!” “Hurrah for us, too!” said Somebody. “Sure,” said the boy named Billy. [Illustration: Wherever his Regiment ... went, there was Old Abe!] Old Abe, the Wisconsin War-Eagle “Teacher was reading to the class about Old Abe, the war Eagle, today,” said the boy named Billy. “What about him,” asked Big Sister, “I do not remember anything about him in my United States History.”