88 Third Annual Report 



did not have any. We sold them to our nearest neighbor who 

 hadn't any, and we sold them at a price that paid us a profit 

 such as no trust or monopoly ever dared to charge. Why did 

 we have potatoes to sell? We put into practice all these ideas 

 I have told you of. Others said there was no such thing as 

 science in farming. There was never a single poor season, so 

 called, but that we made good money on our potatoes. In 1881 

 when we were taking in money so fast that I couldn't sleep 

 nights, and taking it from our neighbors right around us, — my 

 wife said, "if you will just keep still, we will get rich," but I 

 didn't. A manufacturer wouldn't tell his neighbors about his 

 inventions and try to teach them to be successful, but a farmer 

 will every time, and now the farmers in our county are raising 

 better crops of potatoes and all because they have worked along 

 the lines I have told you of and have taken to growing clover 

 instead of timothy, thereby enriching the soil. 



When I was a boy they could raise big crops of potatoes, 

 hundreds of bushels to the acre, the land was rich, but you can't 

 do it now unless you learn the combination and put it into prac- 

 tice, and you can then grow good crops of potatoes, even without 

 a drop of rain from the time they are planted to the time they 

 are dug. 



Question : Did you practice putting a crop of potatoes on 

 the same land more than one year? 



Answer : We did a short time, but soon stopped it ; it is 

 better not to grow them that way. 



Question : If you put in clover one year is the land then 

 in shape so that you can put another crop of potatoes on it? 



Answer : Our rotation was, clover, potatoes and fall wheat, 

 after the potatoes were dug, and then seeded to clover again, 

 and we kept that up right around. It has proven that we grew 

 clover a little too often. If I were to begin again I would make 

 a four-year rotation, and put in another crop, whatever was best ; 

 I would not grow potatoes oftener than every fourth year. 



Question : Would you maintain that in your experience 

 even if you plowed the clover under for one year, that it would 

 sustain two crops beyond, without fertilizer of some kind? 



Answer : Yes, — potatoes and wheat. The clover and til- 

 lage with all the manure on the place saved, both liquid and 

 solid, and put on the land has maintained, and more than main- 

 tained it. We took the land in its low state of cultivation and 

 gradually built it up. 



Question : Can you keep potatoes from sprouting until 

 planting time? 



Answer : Not always ; I think you could always here. Our 

 climate is niore variable ; we have open spells in the winter. The 



