14 POTATO CULTURE. 



ing-harrow to take hold of. This may help to explain why I 

 can do so well with it (see latter part of this chapter). What 

 would be the sense of turning a furrow over flat and smooth, 

 and then using a cutting-harrow to dig it up again, when 

 one can leave it up loose and save half the harrowing ? This 

 is just what we do. These matters will seem very simple 

 to experts ; but many are not experts, and this is the ABC 

 of potato culture, you know. I am trying to make every 

 point clear enough to be understood by a beginner. That 

 jointer pays in two or three other ways. Properly set, it 

 puts all sods under, so nothing will harrow up a small 

 matter, some may think ; but sod is plant food ; potatoes 

 feed down in the soil; and if sods are on top, the roots can 

 not get them that year. See V Again, bits of sod are in the 

 way of using harrow, weeder, etc. Perhaps you think you 

 know all about as simple a matter as plowing a field, and 

 harrowing it for potatoes. Well, I hope you do; but I fear 

 a good many have not thought of every little thing that may 

 be done to their advantage. Success in the future, sharp as 

 competition is, must come from careful attention to little 

 details. 



On my soil I have not found subsoil plowing to pay. I 

 have a plow, and have tried it faithfully It might do good 

 under some conditions ; but I would not advise any one to 

 go into it very largely until he has found by actual experi- 

 ence that it pays. It is possible that, with drainage and 

 clover-growing in regular rotation, my subsoil is in better 

 condition than the average. If so, I believe the other fel- 

 lows will do well to get the better condition in the same way, 

 without extra cost. Theoretically, subsoil plowing is all 

 right. It ought to pay. I was sure it would. But cold facts 

 have chilled my original ardor. The subsoil plow does not 

 pulverize much. It breaks up the clay roughly. If it were 

 possible to pulverize all the subsoil for ten inches, say, as 

 thoroughly and finely as I can the surface, and do it when 

 reasonably dry, I should like to try it on an acre. I am in- 



