EXPERIMENTS IN POTATO-CULTURE. 209 



be spread on, and harrowed in. If the manure is very- 

 coarse, it should either be spread on before the spring 

 2)loughing, or put in the furrow. After harrowing, the land 

 should be furrowed out, the furrows three feet and a half 

 apart and four inches deep. Then drop the seed-potatoes, 

 cut into pieces with two eyes each, ten or twelve inches 

 apart in the furrow. If guano or commercial fertilizer is 

 used, strew it in the furrow. Then cover with a plough by 

 turning the furrow back. Harrow the whole surface, regard- 

 less of the rows, a week before the potatoes come up, and 

 drag with a smoothing-drag just before they break ground. 

 A Thomas smoothing-harrow may be used once or twice 

 after the plants are up, without injuring them. This will 

 kill all the small weeds that have come up. After this a 

 cultivator should be run between the rows, and very near 

 them, two or three times before the plants are in blossom. 

 After this there should be no further cultivation, and there 

 is no need of it if the weeds have been properly kept down 

 up to this time. If hilling is desired, a hilling horse-hoe can 

 be used the last two times. By using this method, hand- 

 hoeing is unnecessary, and much labor is saved. The labor 

 of digging is much reduced, unless a horse potato-digger, 

 of which there are several good patterns, is used, by run- 

 ning a small plough each side of the row, and turning the 

 furrow outwards. If grass-land is used for potatoes, labor 

 may be saved by turning the sod five inches deep, and drop- 

 ping the seed under the edge of every third furrow, so that 

 the horse or ox that walks in the furrow will not tread upon 

 it. If commercial fertilizer is used in this case, it can be 

 strewn between the furrows, over the seed. This method 

 has in some cases been very successful. One way of pro- 

 tecting the potato-vines from potato-bugs is to train a flock 

 of light Brahma fowls to eat them. The fowls can easily be 

 trained to work down the rows by scattering a little corn in 

 them. Twenty fowls will usually protect an acre of pota- 

 toes. Paris-green is probably most generally used as an 

 antidote to the bugs. It may be either dusted over the 

 vines, mixed with fine-ground plaster, at the rate of one 

 pound of Paris-green and seventy-five pounds of plaster to 

 the acre, or sprinkled over the vines mixed in water, through 

 a fine rose watering-pot, at the rate of half a teaspoonful of 



