178 Our Farming. 



damp one, not one that has dried out. The planter does this 

 every time. If planting cut potatoes by hand, I would not mark 

 out much ahead of droppers, and I would cover pretty close to 

 them, too. In fact, when we planted largely by hand, we had one 

 team on marker and one on coverer, and I would plow out a few 

 rows and then cover a few. Thus the potatoes were covered in the 

 fresh, moist soil and were not exposed to the sun much. In my 

 experiments, I have found that drying the seed was an injury. I 

 keep the boxes of cut seed covered. You may wonder whether I 

 would take the cold seed right from heap and plant at once in the 

 cool earth without any warming up or exposure to light. Yes, if 

 I could. They might not start so quickly would not bring quite 

 so early a crop, but it is the best practical field culture. You 

 may start sprouts in the light and drop by hand in a small way 

 all right to hasten their growth. But you cannot increase the 

 yield, all other conditions being equal. Are you afraid you will 

 plant some eyes that will not grow, putting them in before they 

 start ? Well , you may leave them out long enough , if they haven ' t 

 started a little in the pit, to show the least bit of a point starting 

 at the eyes. But I never had any trouble with such seed as I 

 plant good, sound and well ripened. Practically every eye 

 grows. When planted by hand, I have had fields in which you 

 would have to walk miles to find one missing hill. As soon as we 

 are through planting, the working of the ground is continued. 

 Where put in with planter there is a little ridge over each drill, so 

 one can see the rows as well as though they were up, and we 

 usually cultivate between them thoroughly, and deeply as a horse 

 can stand, and then harrow with a smoothing harrow, keeping 

 horses between the rows so as to not tramp on the soil that we 

 cannot cultivate up. The Thomas harrow that we use has 72 $/<&- 

 inch round steel teeth slanting backwards, and takes a sweep 

 of about ten feet. But we harrow only three rows at once, the 

 row between the horses and one each side, lapping the rest of 

 width. If it is a very dry time, and likely to remain so, we roll 

 after this harrowing unless ground is so fine that we are sure seed 

 will not dry out. I prefer not to roll unless necessary, as if it 

 comes on wet afterwards the soil will be better loose. I some- 

 times roll the clay spots only where the soil is not as fine. I 

 have rolled and harrowed them alternately two or three times to 

 get them fine enough to be safe when it was very dry. In a few 

 days, five or six, say, I harrow again lengthwise, with horses 

 between rows. Should it rain, I harrow again when just dry 

 enough, letting no crust form. If I harrowed early in the week 

 and by Friday it looked as though it would rain again soon and 

 is hot and a good time to kill weeds, I harrow again; as soon as it 

 is. When it sets in to rain it may keep wet until weeds get well 

 started. The harrowing is fast work, two acres an hour, and we 

 must keep entirely ahead of weeds for best results. Never fear 



