5 CURRENT PUBLICATIONS IN RURAL ART. 527 
to the depth of the sub-soil, with sand that contains no loam, nor grass 
or weed seeds—such sand as will not adhere when pressed in the hand. 
6. Vines should be set in hills or rows, fourteen to twenty-four inches 
apart; spring is the best time for doing it, or say from the middle of 
April to the middle of June. Itisimportant that they should be planted 
at an inclination tn all cases; thus bringing the tops near the ground, | 
and causing them to sucker better than when pressed down perpen- 
dicularly. 
PRIZE Essay ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE Potato. By D. A. Compton; &vo, pp. 30. 
New York: Orange Judd & Co., 1870. 
Two years ago the Rev. Mr. Wylie, of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, of- 
fered a premium of $100 for the best essay on the cultivation of the 
potato, the premium to be awarded by Mr. Weld of the American 
Agriculturist, Mr. Fuller of Hearth and Home, and Dr. Hexamer, 
who has made the cultivation of the potato a special study. The pre- 
mium was awarded to D. A. Compton, of Hawley, Wayne County, 
Pennsylvania, who, within a reasonable compass, describes with sutti- 
cient minuteness of detail the mode of culture which his experience 
and observation have proved to be best adapted to this crop. The 
writer has been engaged in farming from early youth, and his state- 
ments are based on actual personal experience, being the results of 
many experiments made to test as many theories. He discusses the 
proper soil, manures, varieties, the potato rot, and the various insects 
that prey upon the potato plant in this country. 
‘The potato is most profitably grown in a warm, dry, sandy, or gray- 
elly loam, well filled with decayed vegetable matter. New lands, or 
lands recently denuded of the forest, if not too damp, produce tubers 
of the best quality. When grown in dry new land, the potato always 
cooks dry and mealy, and possesses an agreeable flavor and aroma, not 
to be attained in older soils. Inno clayey soil can it be raised to per- 
fection as regards quality, though large crops of coarse-fleshed tubers 
may be obtained in favorable seasons. The soil must be enriched by 
plowing under green crops, such as clover, buckwheat, peas, &c., or by 
swamp muck that has been drawn to the field in winter, exposed in 
small heaps to the frost, and mixed in the spring with a little lime to 
neutralize the acid. Sea-weed, when bountifully applied, has no supe- 
rior aS &@ manure for the potato. No stable or green barn-yard man- 
ure should be used on this crop. Stable manure predisposes the tuber 
to rot, and detracts from the desired flavor; and not half so large a 
crop can be obtained with it as with different manures. It is a good 
plan to sprinkle a handful of phosphates, wood ashes, or lime in the hills 
at planting, and an equal quantity of wood ashes, or lime slacked in 
strong salt brine, just before the last hoeing. 
No better method can be adopted to bring up partially-exhausted 
lands than plowing under green crops. A farmer cAin thus take up lot 
after lot, and soon bring all into a high state of fertility. It costs no 
more to cultivate an acre of rich, productive land than an acre that is 
poor and unproductive; and the pleasure of harvesting a heavy crop 
abundantly rewards the farmer for his extra labor in preparing his soil. 
Besides, the beneficial effects of manuring with green crops are not tran- 
sitory; the land shows this generous treatment for many years, and if 
lime or ashes be now and then added to assist decomposition, it will 
continue to yield remunerative crops long after land that has been but 
ouce treated with stable manure or guano fails to produce any thing but 
weeds. Manure of some kind must be used, and to most farmers no 
