24 POTATO CULTUEE. 



Manuring the Renovating Crop. 



I have now given you what I believe to be the best way of 

 applying manure directly to the crop, and perhaps I shall 

 surprise you when I say that I believe a potato-grower can 

 do better than this. I have given the above because it 

 seems to be the best that one can do who follows the com- 

 mon practice of manuring the crop directly, and people will 

 be slow to change. The idea of putting the manure on to 

 the money crop, or the one taking the most hand labor, so as 

 to get profitable returns, has a strong hold on the minds of 

 our farmers. It had me once, but it has lost its hold. To 

 show you what I mean, I must go into the matter of rotation 

 a little before we come to it regularly in a later chapter. 



We follow the best rotation I know of for a potato -farm 

 where no stock are kept a three-year one of clover, potatoes, 

 and wheat. The clover is the renovating crop, you know. 

 It draws on the air and subsoil as well as on the soil, for 

 nitrogen ; and it pumps up mineral matter. If we can make 

 it big and strong enough we can get all the fertility we need 

 for pretty good crops of potatoes an4 wheat. If, now, we 

 use the manure to make the clover grow big (put it on the 

 young clover), will it not then be stronger and ranker, better 

 able to send its roots still more deeply into the subsoil, and 

 to gather still more nitrogen from the air ? Again, clover 

 is the safest food we can feed potatoes. It is least likely to 

 produce scab, or rot, or to do harm in a dry year. The pota- 

 toes so fed will be of as fine quality as can be grown. I 

 mean, of course, those fed on the clover-roots (a clover sod 

 turned under), and more or less of the tops. Again, the 

 manure can be put on at a time of year when we have the 

 least to do, and when, as a rule, the ground is hardest and 

 dryest, and when we shall do the least injury. Please turn 

 over and read the chapter on rotation and clover-growing, 

 and you may realize more the value of using manure on the 

 renovating crop. Since the writer began to practice and 

 preach this, one by one, some of the best authorities in the 



