Potatoes are supposed to be planted in the spring - even in in Kansas.
So the ridicule is more pointed in versions, like 1844, that note "They plant 'em in the fall" rather than "dig" them.
The lines about shooting old maids appeared earlier in the Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 18, 1908, and chewing tobacco thin in the Lancaster [Wis.] Weekly Teller, Nov. 7, 1889.
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sj