Growing Potatoes Successfully in ]^ew York. 39 



cay in it by growing heavy crops of clover, manuring, plowing 

 in catch crops, etc. Work the seed bed more. Work it deeply. 

 Work it roughly, that is, throw it around a good deal and mix it 

 up. Make it fine, where it is clayey enough to form lumps. Do 

 all working when it is rather dry. Cultivate the crop many times; 

 keep stirring the ground, as long as you can get a horse through 

 it. Go as deeply as you can for a week or ten days after you 

 can see the rows, and then after that never more than two inches 

 deep. Before your potatoes (and corn) are six inches high the 

 roots come together between the rows. If you tear any of them 

 off, as you will if you go more than two inches deep, the plants 

 must grow them over again. In a dry time this means serious 

 loss, in particular. You do not need to stop this kind of culture 

 at blossoming time; it can do no harm and usually will do much 

 good. Look on the potato field as a summer fellow that you will 

 work about all summer, and grow potatoes while you are doing it. 

 You may make much plant food available in this way, not only 

 for the potatoes but for other crops following. 



In the spring there is usually plenty of water in the soil and 

 subsoil. If you do not do your part a good proportion of this 

 may be taken up into the air by sun and wind, and wasted. Two 

 inches of freshly-stirred, fine soil makes almost as good mulch as 

 a foot of straw. Keep this earth mulch present from the moment 

 the ground is dry enough to harrow, in the spring, until the 

 potato crop is grown, as nearly as is practical. In connection 

 with the vegetable matter mentioned above in the soil, to hold 

 water, your tillage may make you a fair crop, almost without re- 

 gard to rainfall. In stirring the ground to make more plant food 

 available, do the work also at just the right time to form a mulch 

 and check evaporation. Never let the surface dry up hard after 

 a rain. You can use a smoothing harrow until the crop gets up; 

 then a weeder is better, after the tops are too large for the weeder, 

 and also in connection with weeder use one-horse cultivators, 

 with many small teeth. We have planted four inches deep and 

 then did not hill up any, at least not more than an inch or two. 

 Some earth will be thrown to the rows. Remember that weeds 

 take a great quantity of water out of the soil. To grow a ton of 



