FARMING. 9 



There is another advantage of the long growing season in the east- 

 ern coast plain. It is a common practice there to plant a crop of 

 early potatoes or other early truck, that is shipped North in June, and 

 then to plant a crop of corn or cotton which will fully mature, 

 though in case of the cotton the planting must be done between the 

 rows of the early truck before the crop is shipped, but the corn can 

 be planted after the potato crop has been shipped and will make a 

 fully ripe crop. Since the truck crop is very heavily fertilized, there 

 is always'a residual amount enough for a heavy crop of corn, and if 

 peas are sown among the corn the land loses very little fertility. 

 But as we have said, corn is essential in any good rotation of crops 

 in any part of the State, and over the larger part it is far more cer- 

 tain than in what is called the corn belt of the Central West, where 

 there is always a discussion as to the sufficient ripeness of the corn 

 for seed, while in North Carolina, with no frost usually to check 

 corn till late in October, and often into November, there is never any 

 doubt about the full maturity of the seed corn. Where the corn is 

 planted for the silo there is "always time enough to get a crop of pea- 

 vine hay from the same land, if the peas are sown among the corn 

 at last working, and after the peas are mown the stubble is the best 

 possible place for the small grain crops of wheat, oats, or rye, and, as 

 a pea-vine hay crop can always be cut after the harvesting of a small 

 grain crop, it will be seen that our climate gives us special advan- 

 tages in the getting of two crops in a season. In the piedmont sec- 

 tion we have known 75 bushels per acre of oats harvested and later 

 in summer two tons per acre of the finest pea-vine hay made from 

 the same land. 



IRISH POTATOES. 



Mr. Lindsay, who lives in Portsmouth, Va., but whose great plan- 

 tation is in the drained area of the great Dismal Swamp, told re- 

 cently the following anecdote: He said that recently there were 

 several Northern farmers looking about that section for land. One 

 of them asked Mr. Lindsay if the Irish potato could be grown there. 

 He told them that he usually shipped not less than 10,000 barrels 

 North. One of his hearers was so much surprised that he said : "My 

 friend, my wife, when I left home, gave me a little hatchet to give to 

 the man who could beat me lying. I am about ready to hand it over." 

 He really thought that Mr. Lindsay was telling a very big yarn, when 

 in fact he has frequently shipped thousands of barrels over the 

 10,000 ; and not only grows potatoes, but ships about 40,000 bushels 

 of corn to Europe annually from his farm. The same soil that is 

 found so productive of the Irish potato just over the Virginia line 

 is found in greater areas in the coast country of North Carolina from 

 the Dismal Swamp southward, and as earliness in this crop is a mat- 

 ter of great importance, the North Carolina growers have some 

 weeks start of the Virginia planters. Some of the largest growers of 



