EXPERIMENTS IN POTATO CULTURE. 131 



therefore you exhaust ^onr soil in potash and )'ou overload with phos- 

 phates. Now, suppose you want to balance them. You go into a 

 rotation of crops ; you plant grain and then you begin to balance up 

 your ground by taking out a larger proportion of phosphates. Sup- 

 pose you plant wheat there ; you take out the nitrogen and so you 

 even up your ground ; put on a crop of grass afterwards and then 3'ou 

 go on and raise potatoes again. Suppose, instead of doing that, you 

 put on enough potash to balance your manure ; 3'ou put potash on and 

 that balances it and 30U go on. I have got land that I have raised 

 potatoes on ten or twelve 3'ears, raising at the rate of six hundred 

 and sixty-six bushels to the acre in potatoes for ten or twelve years. 

 Why? Simply because I balance that land up with potash. That 

 is the whole storv. If 30U are going to plant potatoes year after 

 3'ear, as you exhaust that land in the partiall3' decomposed vege- 

 table substances the land will become hard in time, if 3'ou confine 

 yourself to commercial fertilizers. You can put on a proper balance 

 so that there will be enough potash, nitrogen and phosphates, and 

 3'et the land becomes exhausted of that material which lightens it up 

 and loosens it. You must raise a grain crop and plow it in. 



Question. Are 3'OU any more liable to raise scabby potatoes from 

 scabb3' seed? 



Mr. Hersey. I do not know about scabb3' potatoes ; m3' experience 

 is that it makes no difference. 



Question. About this small potato business. I wish to ask you, 

 do those potatoes ripen as earl3' as the3' did when you first commenced ? 



Mr. Hersey. Yes, the3' do just as earh' ; it don't make an3" dif- 

 ference at all ; 3'OU always get them earl3' because the3^ start off 

 earl3^ 



Question. Would you recommend in the selection of commercial 

 fertilizers the ordinar3' combination found in our fertilizers, or would 

 \^ou select one made especially for the crop? 



Mr. Hersey. I cannot sa3^ that I have had an3' experience in 

 buying special fertilizers for special crops. I do not know what I 

 should do. I suppose I should tr3' some experiments first before I 

 settled down to anything. I make m3' own fertilizers ; there are 

 seven of us join together and put in machinery so that we buy the 

 bone and reduce it and grind it, and then bu3' our chemicals and 

 make whatever we want. We make about fift3' tons a year, so that 

 reall3' I have not had ver3' much experience in bu3ing commercial 

 fertilizers. 



