"
"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.
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