Potato Growing in New York. 195 



broken. After a few days exposure to light and air they become 

 toughened and will not be much injured by the weeder. 



If the weeder cannot be successfully used for the first cultivation 

 and especially if young weeds are beginning to start in the rows, 

 a very close, shallow cultivation should be given as soon as possible. 

 This cultivation should be shallow because it cannot be deep and 

 equally close without danger of injury to the young plants. The 

 next cultivation should be as deep as it is practicable to make the 

 cultivator go, keeping away from the rows far enough not to endanger 

 the young plants. The object should be to make the soil between 

 the rows as mellow and as deep as possible. This deep cultivation 

 should follow soon after the close shallow one, or if the weeder was 

 successfully used after the crop was up and the rows are free from 

 weeds, it may take the place of the latter. 



In all of our tillage experiments with potatoes, the preparation 

 of the soil, the planting and the treatment up to the second cultiva- 

 tion have been practically as already described. The variations in 

 treatment accorded to the different plats have begun at this point 

 and have consisted, in the main, of comparisons of different numbers 

 of cultivations, of level tillage vs. hilling, and of tests of Bordeaux 

 mixture to prevent blight. The following data are reproduced 

 from Bulletins 140, 156 and 196 and are arranged so as to present 

 only one phase of the work at a time. The grouping indicates plats 

 that are strictly comparable, as they were treated exactly alike 

 except as indicated in the third column: 



