POTATO CULTURE. 163 



can get a little light from his letter. He says : " I plow the 

 ground, and harrow it once with a common harrow, mark 

 out with a plow, and cover with a hoe. Then I cultivate 

 generally twice, going twice in a row each time " (he has got 

 advanced enough so he drills his crop in, but not properly, 

 or he would not need to go twice in a row), " and hoe by 

 hand ; then shovel-plow them, and hoe again, and that is all 

 the tillage done. I put on about ten big loads of rotten 

 manure on an acre." 



On my farm it costs about $3.00 a day for man and team 

 and tools for plowing and harrowing, and $2.50, say, for cul- 

 tivating, and we will allow that our friend cultivates about 

 as much in a day as we do, which isn't at all certain. He 

 uses Paris green, and says it would cost him about $5.00 an 

 acre if he hired a man to put it on, which he doesn't can't 

 afford it. A good man and board will cost, say, $1.50 a day 

 to do the hoeing, and when we used to hoe by hand it took a 

 man about a day to hoe an acre nicely. Now we are ready 

 for figures. 



Plowing one acre $1 50 



Harrowing with common harrow 30 



Cultivating twice, twice in a row, and shovel-plowing-.. 2 10 



Hoeing twice by hand 3 00 



Marking out with plow. 42 



Covering with hoe . . . 1 50 



Seed small potato 16 bush, at 20 cts., one in a place, 



uncut 3 20 



Dropping seed 1 50 



10 loads of manure, say $1.00 per load, and charge half 



to this crop. . . 5 00 



Bugging 5 00 



Digging and picking up 6 00 



Marketing, say three miles 3 00 



Value of land, say $100 an acre, use at 6 per cent 6 00 



$38 02 



This makes the net profit $3.00 less than nothing. 

 I do not think the growers who work about in this way 

 and with these results make any real profit as a rule. They 



