This 1945 Canadian color documentary about growing certified seed potatoes is presented by the National Film Board for the Department of Trade and Commerce and Department of Agriculture Ottawa. The film opens with acres of potato fields. Farmers on tractors move across the field. Another field is plowed by a farmer and horse (:056-1:52). Women sit and cut potatoes over a sharp blade into smaller chucks and drop them into baskets. Wire baskets of potatoes are dipped in a disinfectant and loaded into barrels (1:54-2:50). Men roll barrels of chopped potatoes onto backs of open bed trucks where they slide down a plank at a field. Fertilizer is added to metal box planters pulled by tractors (one a 1940s Farmall) and the potatoes are planted (2:51-4:30). A horse pulls a manure spreader, seen in action (4:41-4:59). Clover is plowed under and a field cultivated (5:00-5:34). Hands pours soil samples into small boxes to be mailed for testing. These are poured into small jars and tubes and analyzed by a scientist in a lab coat (5:35-6:28). A scientist cross-breeds varieties of potatoes. Flower pots full of growing seedlings are tested. A scientist examines a seedling under a microscope. He sprinkles disease on the leaves to test resistance (6:30-7:40). The lab disinfects a container of potatoes from a grower. Each tuber is numbered and a corresponding eye scooped out and planted in a pot. Once growing, they are examined for disease. If healthy, the parent tubers are returned to the farmer for planting (7:42-8:45). The farmer cuts each tuber into smaller parts and plants them a foot apart in the deep row (8:46-9:29). The inspector shakes hands with the farmer (9:32). Acres of planted potato fields are panned. The farmers wearing suspenders and newsboy caps and an inspector in a safari hat walk through the potato field at ten-weeks (9:57-10:42). A pocketknife is used closeup on a diseased plant. Diseased plants are pulled and put into burlap bags (10:43-11:46). A cultivator is used, followed by a sprayer dusting the potatoes with fungicides and insecticides that float through the air like heavy smoke (11:49-12:57). In the fall, potatoes are carefully dug up. Barrels are dropped off from a 1940s open bed truck. The 1940s tractor pulls a digging machine that moves the potatoes to the top of the row. Women wearing 1940s jeans or overalls and a headscarf pick up potatoes and put them into woven baskets, which are dumped into a barrel (12:58-14:58). The barrels are picked up and loaded onto the truck bed (15:00-15:20). The potatoes are unloaded and poured through a chute to form giant piles in a specialized building (15:21-16:00). Women work at a conveyer belt to sort and grade potatoes. The potatoes are dropped into crates, bags, or baskets at the end of the belt. These are loaded into barrels for transporting (16:02-17:14). An inspector at the dock removes a lid and looks through the potatoes. The barrels are roped and loaded into the ship’s hold (17:15-19:00).

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