POTATOES. 137 



saw much difference, in planting small potatoes one year, but 

 the second year they would run down ; there would be none 

 so large and there would be a great quantity of little ones- 

 My experience has been that large potatoes, cut, have always 

 given me the best and the most sizable ones, and the greatest 

 yield. 



For the last ten or fifteen years I have used, almost invari- 

 ably, ashes, plaster, and lime, mixed, and every time I have 

 left rows where I have not used this mixture, to see if it had 

 any effect, I have found that I have got a better yield and bet- 

 ter potatoes where I used it, and they have generally been 

 more free from rot. Before the potato-rot came on, I used to 

 manure very heavily in the hill, and got large crops, but I 

 found that I must abandon that, and since tiicn I have plowed 

 in my manure and used plaster, lime, and ashes. This last 

 year I tried a different experiment on a piece of land a little 

 sidling, descending to the southwest — a deep, yellow loam. 

 I plowed perhaps six inches deep, and plowed in coarse ma- 

 nure. Then I took green manure from the windows of the 

 barn, and put a half shovelful in a hill. Then I took a 

 a small handful of that lime, plaster and ashes, and put in 

 the hill and made my men cover it as deep as I could, keeping 

 watch and talking all the time. Th-ey came up very well and 

 looked finely. About the time of hoeing, the bugs troubled 

 me considerably ;. the vines were perhaps nine inches or a 

 foot high, and they began to eat them. So I took plaster and 

 sowed it all over the vines when the dew was on them. I 

 think those potatoes were planted about the first of April ; 

 they were plowed a second time in August, and kept green 

 until the frost came. I rather attribute their keeping green 

 so late to the plaster I sowed on them. I will say that by 

 cutting the larger potatoes you have fewer stalks in the hill, 

 and they grow more vigorously. The first time I tried this 

 experiment of plowing in the manure and using plaster, ashes, 

 and lime, I cut my potatoes very fine and I did not use quite 

 five bushels to the acre. You may think that was too little. 

 One, two, three and four stalks came up — very seldom five. 

 In digging those potatoes I watched very closely, and I no- 



