106 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



whole surface was transformed into as smooth and cornel}' fields as 

 the rest of the farm. 



AVhen we strike out our potato lands, the only questions are, what 

 spot to begin at, and how much can I handle this season? Horse 

 power is wonderfully efficient in the planting and cultivating of 

 such spots. After the mere new land period is passed potatoes are 

 grown on every part of the cleared land. 



The fashion in use of potatoes has set strongly' in our favor, and 

 underlying the outward appearance there may be a real reason for 

 this drift. We are for the most part above the 46° of latitude, and 

 our summer may be better adapted to the best development of the 

 potato than even the southerl}' part of the State. It may do for our 

 potato what latitude does for the Baldwin apple, making it most per- 

 fect at or near its most northern limit. The demand for our seed for 

 points south and west of Boston is very large. Our summer heat is 

 always tempered with cool nights, and these have a tendency to re- 

 strict the ravages of rust and its attendant evils. Be the reason what 

 it ma}', or be it that there is no reason for the quoting of our pota- 

 toes above others, so long as the current is in our favor we will do 

 all we can to keep it running, and make money out of it. Our 

 farmers make money. Of that there is no doubt. 



This year's crop was remarkably good in all respects. One of our 

 best nien stated to me that on ten acres of his land he harvested as 

 good a crop as he ever had, and he took to the depot, at digging time, 

 fifty barrels to the acre, right through. The culls for the factory 

 were just about the same in number of barrels ; 100 barrels to the 

 acre, 2f bushels to the barrel ; 275 bushels a good yield. 



The question which always comes up, like Banquo's ghost, is, "How 

 soon will you exhaust the soil, and lose the possibility of raising these 

 nice potatoes?" I cannot answer that question for I do not know 

 enough about such matters. The use of fertilizers has set in on so 

 large a scale, with so much of stable manure as we are now getting 

 to have, that if the present theories about fertilizers are in accord 

 with the truth in the matter, we are not going to exhaust the soil. 



Our potatoes are grown on three kinds of laud, as the term goes. 

 The land just burned over, the pasture land, and the tillage land in 

 rotation with grain and hay. Sufficient allusion has already been 

 made to the new land method, for as the forest is the same in kind, 

 and ashes and smut are unchanged in qualit}', the processes with the 

 griming up and smooching of the operator are the same now as in 



