A Hoover paddle digger was used on this farm to partially mechanize the harvesting process. The one row Hoover Paddle Digger has paddles on the wheels. The turning of the wheels on the digger powers the digging mechanism. After the potato digger has uprooted the potatoes, the pickers follow along with baskets to collect the potatoes. When the basket is full it is dumped into a barrel. Each barrel is marked with a picker's ticket. The farmer collects the tickets and pays each picker according to the number of barrels each worker picked.

In 1922 Olof O. Nylander assembled a display of photographs, maps and charts of the Maine Swedish Colony which he displayed at the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of Gothenburg, Sweden. The series of display cards, or samlats, each featured several photographs of homes, businesses and community members from New Sweden, Woodland, Perham and Caribou.
This photograph is from samlat 12.