VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 59 



land; then work it and work it and you can increase your 

 crops. 



You want to learn to do this work fast or you may get 

 left behind. A western farmer thinks nothing of driving four 

 or five horses that are drawing a wide disk harrow, and lead- 

 ing three more that are drawing a smoothing harrow behind. 

 You must learn as far as practicable to make your fields larg- 

 er and drive more horses, and get more work done per man, if 

 you want to keep up. Let the first cultivation of potatoes and 

 corn be deep, very deep; in fact, you may well go over them 

 the second time within four or five days, very deep ; then let 

 all the work be shallow, not more than two inches deep. The 

 roots come together between the rows before the potatoes are 

 six inches high, on good ground. They do not grow down, 

 but out horizontally. If you cut them off, the plant must 

 grow them over again. If it is dry weather this means decid- 

 ed loss. Again, it makes a difference when you cultivate. 

 You may go over a field once in five days and not get the best 

 results unless you select just the right days. The ground 

 should never be left to dry up and crust over after a rain, 

 from the time it is placed in the spring until the tops of pota- 

 toes cover the land. Harrow or use a weeder after every rain, 

 as soon as the land is dry enough to go on to. Later, culti- 

 vate in the same way. If it is a dry time cultivate again 

 within a week any way, not waiting for a rain. Keep the 

 surface stirred and loose, as it makes a mulch that checks the 

 evaporation of water. The soil and subsoil are full of water 

 in the spring; with care along this line you can save hundreds 

 of tons of water from going up into the air — save it for your 

 crop. And always remember that in a dry time the finer you 

 can make the surface you stir with the cultivator, the better 

 mulch it makes. We attach a board at the rear of the culti- 

 vator in such a time, to drag on the ground and rub the sur- 

 face fine. With the shallow work spoken of above, you need 

 not stop working potatoes at blossoming time, but may con- 

 tinue as long as a horse can get through. Narrow the culti- 

 vator as the season advances and you will do only good and 

 no harm. Y"ou will keep weeds, down, check evaporation and 

 liberate plant food up to the last minute. In a very dry sea- 

 son, when the tops did not get too large, I have cultivated 

 until the crop died. 



Now, good friends, I am not giving you some idle theory, 

 but the result of many years of experience. We have made 

 thousands and thousands of dollars by canning out just what 

 I have told you above. We have grown potatoes at small cost 

 and realized very large profits. Of course I cannot go all 

 over the subject in an article of this kind ; it takes a book to 



