728 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



done to secure complete burying of all weeds, the ground' can be 

 leveled with the weeder without injury to the potato tops. 



Until the plants are a few inches high, cultivations with weeder 

 or slant-tooth harrow should be given whenever weed seeds are 

 sprouting or a crust is forming. 



One Deep Working. — We now come to a cultivation of a kind that 

 Keems severe to the plants, and yet in all soils except the loosest it 

 is essential to maximum crops. The potato makes its crop down in 

 the soil. The ])hysical condition of the land at time the crop is 

 produced is more important to it than it can be to corn. The latter 

 plant makes its crop in the air, and has all the room it wants; the 

 potato must disx)lace soil to get room foj- its tubers. A naturally 

 loose soil will remain in good physical condition throughout the 

 season, but such soils are rarely retentive of moisture, and the great 

 bulk of our potatoes is grown in laud that becomes too compact for 

 the best development of tubers. With such soils the only rational 

 thing to do is to undo the work of the rains that have fallen after 

 the planting by making the ground loose once more. Roots will be 

 sacrificed, but this may not be an evil. Planting early, our potatoes 

 incline to make root growth too near the surface of the ground dur 

 ing the cold and wet weather usual to the month of May. These 

 surface roots cannot be depended upon when heat and drouth come. 

 It may be just as well that a deep cultivation is required to loosen 

 the soil, as the destruction of these surface roots leads to deeper 

 rooting. That is a point that does not require discussion here, the 

 cultivation being a necessity for other reasons. It is my experience 

 that tliis one deep cultivation, given when all plants are well above 

 ground, can hardly be too close, if the soil is compact as a result of 

 beating rains. A deep-running wheel-cultivator can be made to do 

 fairly good work, and I hesitate to recommend any implement less 

 modern. Wlien it makes the soil loose in the row, where the tubers 

 will be formed, nothing more can be desired. But very many of us 

 are growing potatoes in heavier soil, and we are willing to give any 

 sort of tillage that will show the most profitable results. 



An Old-fashioned Way. — The point of the shovel of the cultivator 

 should be run under the plants at this stage of growth, if the ground 

 has settled firmly. Tubers cannot form in a hard soil. It is not now 

 a question of root growth, but of the possibility of good physical 

 condition of the soil in the hill. If the shovels of a wheel-cultivator, 

 running on both sides of the plant, are pointed under the row, they 

 will lift the plant out. A number of years ago we abandoned the 

 use of the more modern implements for this one cultivation, and 

 leaving them in the tool-house we returned to the use of the old- 

 fashioned one-horse plow, having but a single stock. With a long 

 and very narrow shovel, the plow could be held at such an angle 



