AND WHERE TO FIND ONE. 203 



&quot; Humph so I have heard before. 



&quot; And that was his answer to our kindly-meant sugges 

 tion ; and he bent again over his profitless toil, disinclined 

 to talk of what * he had heard before. Some of this muck, 

 compressed like brick while moist, and then dried, burns 

 like cannel coal, leaving an ash highly charged w r ith pot 

 ash. As we walked over the immense pile, extending in a 

 broad belt around the pond, we picked up tuft after tuft as 

 large as a man s hat, so light that we played football with 

 them. They were made up of a knitted mass of fibrous 

 roots, which would burn like dry wood twigs, and afford an 

 equal per cent, of potash. Yet, while they lie here and de 

 cay and waste away, the owners of the poor, sandy soil ad 

 joining will send to Vermont or &quot;Western New York for 

 leached ashes, for these they have proved are good for the 

 land, while the value of the muck they have only * heard 

 tell of before. They have also heard that it 4 is pizen to 

 the land, and therefore will not listen and learn how to use 

 it and make it most valuable. 



&quot; Turning away from this pile of wasted wealth, we 

 drove a mile or two across the plain to visit a successful 

 market-truck farmer ; not a 4 garden-trucker, but one who 

 grows field crops for market. To-day he was digging po 

 tatoes a very fair crop of Mercers, about 150 bushels per 

 acre. The tops were still very green, and the farmer 

 thought the tubers would have increased about a quarter, if 

 left to ripen, but then they would not bring as much. The 

 price to-day is $3.25 a barrel. The vines are pulled and 

 tubers shaken off between two rows, and the remainder 

 forked out with a five-pronged, flat-tined fork. Then 

 two men pass along picking all the marketable tubers into 

 a basket that holds about three pecks three being counted 

 to a barrel saving, as they go along, all the best in a 

 smaller basket, to top off with the best, of course, always 



