families are often left at home with the grandmother, while the mother
goes out to field work. The painter Millet himself was in childhood
the special charge of his grandmother, while his mother labored on the
farm. The people of our picture have another and, as it seems, a much
pleasanter plan, in going to the field as a family party.

[Illustration: From a carbon print by Braun, Clément & Co John Andrew
& Son, Sc. THE POTATO PLANTERS]

The day is well advanced and the work goes steadily on. It is potato
planting, and the potato crop is of great importance to country
people, second perhaps to the wheat, as it supplies food to both man
and beast. The commoner varieties, as the large white, are raised for
cattle, and the finer and sweeter kinds, the red and the yellow, are
kept for the table.

The laborer and his wife move along the field, facing each other on
opposite sides of the row they are planting. The man turns the sod
with his hoe, a short-handled tool which long practice has taught him
to use skilfully. The wife carries the potato seed in her apron, and
as her husband lifts each spadeful of earth, she throws the seed into
the hole thus made. He holds the hoe suspended a moment while the seed
drops in, and then replaces the earth over it. The two work in perfect
unison, each following the other's motion with mechanical regularity,
as they move down the field together.

The two who work so well together in the field are sure to work well
together in the home. The man has the serious, capable look of a
provident husband. The woman looks like a good housewife. That shapely
hand throwing the seed so deftly into the ground is well adapted to