SPECIAL FARM TOPICS 191 



of being a good producer and a good seller done up in the same 

 package. He is a good manager of men. He is willing to live and 

 let live. If we were to measure his success on a percentage basis we 

 would make it: 



Individuality 75 percent 



Advantageous location of farm 15 percent 



Land 10 percent 



The justice of the small percent given to the land in this parti- 

 cular case is apparent from the following : When he took charge of 

 the farm the gross returns from it were less than the amount he 

 now pays for rent. The soil upon which he now produces his crops 

 of 175 bushels of potatoes per acre, his melons and garden vegetables, 

 produced only 8 bushels of rye per acre. This land he brought up 

 to its present high state of fertility by the use of cowpeas and manure. 

 Now he no longer needs the cowpeas. In four years by this method 

 he increased the yield of rye from 8 to 22 bushels per acre. The 

 practice of raising two, and in some cases, three crops on the same 

 land each year is a distinguishing feature in the management of 

 this farm. In this way the area devoted to the garden crops is more 

 than doubled. It is practiced with the beets, onions, late beans, 

 early sweet corn, melons and turnips. 



Sweet corn is another important source of income on this farm. 

 Successive plantings are grown, beginning with Premo for the very 

 early and finishing with Country Gentleman for the latest. Plant- 

 ings are so timed as to give a constant supply of green corn from 

 July until frost. 



Other Crops. On that part of the farm devoted to potatoes, 

 melons, cabbages, etc., no particular rotation system is used; al- 

 though, except in the case of potatoes, the same crop is rarely raised 

 on the same land more than two years in succession. Potatoes pro- 

 duce a larger amount of gross income than any other one crop on the 

 farm. They are grown exclusively on the second bottom. Re- 

 peated failure has followed attempts to grow them on the first bottom. 

 Early varieties are planted, as the late varieties have proven un- 

 profitable. Potatoes have been raised for the last 15 years on the 

 same field. Crimson clover and rye are sown after the potatoes have 

 been harvested. The rye is manured during the winter, using from 

 10 to 12 tons per acre, and is turned under in the spring after it has 

 made a good growth. The potatoes are put in the ground with a 

 planter and about 500 pounds per acre of high grade steamed bone ia 

 used in the row. The tubers are harvested with a digger. Alternate 

 rows are dug and the vines thrown on the intervening undug rows, 

 and the rows thus vacated are planted to late cucumbers. The dig- 

 ger leaves the ground in good condition for the cucumbers. The 

 only further attention needed is the running of a small one-horse 

 roller over the rows. This roller is a handy contrivance made from 

 a sewer tile. In digging the remaining rows the hitch to the digger 

 is so arranged that very few cucumber vines are injured from tram- 

 pling by the horses. 



