Horse drawn potato harvesting equipment evolved quickly

This potato digger was drawn by two horses so the horses could walk in the furrows on either side of the potato row. It was handled by hand by a single operator, much like a single bottom hand plow. The blade in front dug down under the potatoes and pushed them up onto the "fingers" at the rear. The fingers were bounced up and down by an eccentric gear and this bouncing motion tended to separate the potatoes from the soil. A potato digger just like this one was kept on the Kenneth and Mary Morgan farm well into the 1950's to dig the garden potatoes.

This is an early horse drawn potato digger. It required one operator, who sat on the seat, from where he could drive the horses and raise and lower the digger blade. The blade was pushed under the potatoes, which were then pushed onto the chain links, which were, in turn, bounced by eccentric wheels to encourage the soil to drop through the links. The vines and potatoes were then dropped out the back, hopefully on top of the soil. Later models had an extension on the rear to give the potatoes more time to be separated from the soil.

In the picture above one can see the burlap bags of potatoes ready to be hauled to a potato cellar for storage, a wagon used to haul them, and the potato digger pulled by horses. And, last, but not least, the people who picked the potatoes up and put them in sacks.