86 Thiud Annual Report 



We stored the potatoes on cement floors. 



There are many things of that kind that I might call your 

 attention to that anyone who grows potatoes largely will need 

 to know to reduce the cost of production. We hear about manu- 

 facturers making so much money, such a large percentage on 

 their investments. We never thought of making less than 200% 

 profit on our potatoes. For every dollar invested we got $2 

 profit, and we have done that for a quarter of a century. 



Question : How many bushels do you grow to the acre ? 



Answer : We can't grow as many per acre as you can 

 here ; our climate is not as favorable, from 200 to 250 bushels 

 of merchantable potatoes per acre. We have grown more, even 

 up to 300 bushels and more on single acre, but that is exceptional ; 

 our average would run along year after year between 200 and 

 250 bushels of merchantable potatoes. 



What has always seemed to me to be the most important 

 point in the culture of potatoes— this has been my life work, — 

 is the tillage of the crop, and particularly the tillage in a season 

 when it is a little dry. I don't know so much about your climate, 

 but we are troubled with drought more or less every year, 

 almost. We have some years grown potatoes almost w^ithout 

 rain, and other years there would be weeks at a time when it 

 would be dry and hot. Now, the first thing that I began to 

 study was, how to grow a crop without regard to the season. 

 We couldn't afford to have any luck about it ; we had to have a 

 crop every year, a good big one. I have made the statement, 

 and I believe it, that I could grow a good fair crop without a drop 

 of rain. I could not grow 300 bushels per acre, but I could 

 grow, I believe, 150 bushels, with the season utterly dry from 

 the time the seed was planted to the time of maturity, and 

 in just the way we grow all our potatoes. In the first place we 

 have rich soil. I told you we got the soil rich enough to grow 

 a good crop, and how we did it ; rich not only in plant food 

 but rich in vegetable matter, got it so it held the moisture, — 

 that is a necessity in a dry summer. You have to have the 

 vegetable matter in the soil, you get it in saving the manure, 

 growing crops and turning them under, etc. 



Question : Did you use any commercial fertilizers ? 



Answer : No, not at all. We got in the habit of getting 

 along without them ; we had the fertility in the soil, and gradually 

 we built it up. When not enought rain comes from the clouds in 

 the summer to supply a crop we have to depend on the moisture 

 that is stored up in the spring when the rains and snows are 

 taken in by the earth, and gradually these are thrown ofif to the 

 crops. As the sun shines on the surface and the wind passes 

 over it and takes the water away, more is supplied from beneath 



