366 THE POTATO 



was vice-president. We paid cash and handled 

 our product on its merits, as every business should 

 do. About this time, or in fact several years be- 

 fore, we found that the Early Rose were not grow- 

 ing in paying quantities, and some farmer shipped 

 some seed of the Rose Seedling variety from New 

 York; also some Ma.minof.li Pearls, Carmans, Mam- 

 moth Prolifics, and Rurals. All of these varieties 

 were more or less successful, especially the Pearls, 

 which are yet the principal crop raised here. In 

 the summer of 1887 our president died and I was 

 compelled to take charge of the business. We 

 sent a man to Texas and kept him there a whole 

 season at considerable expense, being careful to 

 ship only good stock. We did not make much, but 

 we created a market for the future. That year 

 there were about 1,500 cars of potatoes raised in 

 the territory north of Denver. We found that 

 we had about reached our limit, as the water from 

 the streams would not hold out for late irrigation; 

 that is, in August. This made it necessary to 

 build reservoirs to store flood waters and the win- 

 ter floods of the streams. 



"We were not raising much over 100 bushels to 

 the acre, as the soil lacked humus and nitrogen. 

 A farmer from Iowa by the name of Bliss concluded 

 that he would try turning under alfalfa as they 

 did clover in the East. Now our farmers were of 

 the opinion that you could not get it to rot, as it 

 came right up again, but he managed, by putting 

 chains on the plows, to turn the plant under. The 

 result was astonishing, as it just about doubled the 

 crop, not only of potatoes, but of everything else. 



"A number of years ago I conceived the idea 

 that we might increase our crop by shipping in 

 some seed from a non-irrigated country; so we got 



