GROWING POTATOES— PREVENTING DISEASES. 



C^ fN^HE abundant crops of 1895 and 

 '96, with an overstocked mar- 

 ket and low prices, had the 

 influence on many growers of 

 becoming indifferent in caring for the 

 crop of 1897, the result of which is a 

 light yield of poor quality. 



The heavier soils are not capable of 

 producing the best quality of potatoes 

 at any time. 



The lighter and more suitable soils 

 did not give a satisfactory yield and 

 quality in 1897 from the plants being 

 killed by blight long before completing 

 their growth. 



The writer invites the indulgence of 

 the reader in giving our experience on 

 the subject briefly. 



No attempt will be made in this short 

 paper to describe the diseases of the 

 potatoe, for this is done in a very 

 practical way in the Farmer's Bulletin, 

 No. 23, of the Central Experimental 

 Farm, Ottawa, by Prof. John Craig. 



Rotation. — We practice a three year 

 rotation as nearly as possible on all our 

 land except what is down to pasture and 

 fruit, and depend on medium red clover 

 to keep up the fertility. 



It may be said that we go through our 

 rotation backwards, or the opposite way 

 from the common practice. 



Most people apply manure to the land 

 before the hoed crop. We top dress in 

 the fall and winter after the corn, pota- 

 toes or whatever crop we use, hauling 

 and spreading direct from the stables 

 whenever the ground is frozen enough 

 to bear a team. Our object is to mulch 

 and fertilize all we can to insure a good 

 catch and growth of clover which is 

 sown with the grain crop. 



All corn is cut for the silo and all 

 straw used for feed or bedding is cut so 

 there is no clogging of implements in 



working the manure in the surface soil 

 with harrow and cultivator where it re- 

 mains two seasons. 



Cultivation is commenced by plough- 

 ing the clover sod late in the fall, and har- 

 row, cultivate and gang in the spring, 

 and when ready to plant in May, strike 

 out and plough in wide lands dropping 

 fresh cut seed 15 x 36 inches in every 

 third furrow, six inches deep. 



Two good hands will cut with a curved 

 knife and drop the seed as fast as the 

 ground can be ploughed with one team. 



Harrow cross-wise and length-wise 

 every few days up to the time the plants 

 are three or four inches above ground. 



If the work has been well done up to 

 this time there will be little need of a 

 hoe in the field. 



Scufile on the level, for the more 

 ridging is done the surface will be ex- 

 posed to be dried out by sun and wind, 

 and the greater amount of soil moisture 

 will be lost. 



We scuffle once a week or as soon as 

 the soil is fit to work after every shower 

 up to the time the plants shade the 

 i^round, deep at first, finishing at an inch 

 and a half. 



If from drenching rain or any cause 

 the soil gets so firm that the tubers are 

 showing above the surface, we use the 

 hillers on the scuffler covering the 

 row enough to keep them from 

 being sun burned as the common phrase 

 goes, but it does not require the sun to 

 make a potato look green, the light 

 from a small cellar window will destroy 

 the quality of the best potatoes. To 

 prevent this we keep the bins covered 

 with a mat or anything that will exclude 

 the light, and the quality will compare 

 favorably with the ideal way of wintering 

 in pits. 



(To be continued.) 



207 



