IRISH POTATOES 243 



are planted so early that quick sprouting would be risky. The extent to 

 which the culture has attained would astonish potato growers in the North, 

 who, because they still supply the larger part of the winter table demand 

 in the South, imagine that potatoes are not grown in the South to any extent 

 But when they see single growers planting 700 barrels of seed potatoes it 

 would seem that some potatoes are grown here. The early crop in the South 

 needs different fertilization from that grown North. Planted at such an 

 early period of the year and dug before hot weather begins, and before the 

 nitrification is very active in the soil, there is a greater need for nitrogen and 

 heavy fertilization to push the crop than there is in the North. Then, too, 

 it is generally more valuable and the grower can afford to be more lavish 

 with the feeding of the crop. 



FERTILIZING THE SOUTHERN EARLY CROP. 



The great need of the potato in the way of plant food is a complete fer- 

 tilizer in which potash is a leading constituent. In some localities along the 

 coast near the ports of entry, the growers have concluded that they can get 

 the potash needed more cheaply from kainit than from the more concentrated 

 potash salts, and they have adopted the practice to apply the potash needed 

 by giving a heavy dressing of kainit to the land in the fall before the planting. 

 They argue that in this way they get rid, during the winter rains, of the 

 excess of chloride of sodium, and .that in its leaching it renders available 

 other forms of valuable plant food. But by far the greater number adhere to 

 the application of potash in their fertilizer mixture in the form of muriate 

 of potash at or just before the planting time. In some sections of the coun- 

 try it is claimed that the sulphate of potash produces potatoes of a 

 finer quality, and more starchy and dry. But the Southern grower finds that 

 the muriate gives him the best crop, and as no one expects to find these early 

 potatoes dry and starchy like the mature Northern crop, he prefers quantity 

 to quality. 



One of the largest growers of early potatoes on the Atlantic coast uses 

 the following mixture at the rate of one ton per acre: Fish scrap, 700 

 pounds; sodium nitrate, 300 pounds; acid phosphate, 600 pounds; muriate 

 of potash, 400 pounds This, it will be seen, is a very highly nitrogenous and 

 potassic compound, and the growers of potatoes have been compelled to make 

 their own mixture because none of the factory made articles have the amount 

 of nitrogen or potash which they wish. The above would be five and one- 

 half per cent, nitrogen, seven and two fifths per cent, of phosphoric acid and 

 ten per cent, of potash, and it forms a typical Southern early potato fertilizer. 



