366 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



May 30, 1832. 



and beauty ; the birds of the air, who, though tliey 

 have neither store-house nor barn, are fed by a 

 paternal kindness ; the invigorating sunshine and 

 the fertilizing rain ; the fields glistening with the 

 enriching dew, or yellow with the ripened harvest, 

 and the cattle upon a thousand hills, all speak to 

 the husbandman, of God, in tones which find their 

 way at once to the feeling and pious bosom. Let 

 hislieart and life pour forth a gratelul response. 

 In the exercise of an honest industry, wlio can feel 

 a justcr claim to the peaceful enjoyment of its 

 bountiful returns ! The possession of these gifts 

 of divine goodness should remind him of his duty 

 to those whom it gives him the power and privi- 

 lege to succor and relieve. When the peace and 

 contentment and comfort which reigns in his hab- 

 itation, are thus enjoyed in charity to his fellow 

 men and in humble piety to God, this earth pre- 

 sents no condition more privileged and enviable. 



Boston, Wednesday Evening, May 30, 1832. 



CULTURE OF POTATOES. 



A writer for Paxton and Harrison's Horticultu- 

 ral Register, with the signature of " G. J. T." and 

 author of the Domestic Gardener's Manual, ob- 

 serves, that " our enlightened President, Mr 

 Knight, has placed me in possession of directions 

 for planting that noble root [the potato,] in his 

 own hand writing." They are as follows:-— 



I obtained from the ash-leaved kidneys, last 

 season, (a bad one, 1830,) a produce equal to six 

 hundred and seventy bushels, of eighty pounds 

 each, to the statute acre ; and I entertain no doubt 

 of having as many this year. To obtain these 

 vast crops of the ash-leaved kidneys I always 

 plant whole potatoes, selecting the largest I can raise; 

 and for a very early crop, those ripened early in the 

 preceding summer, and kept dry. I usually plant 

 tlicm on'their ends, to stand with the crown end iip- 

 tvards, and place them at four inches distance, from 

 centre to centre in the rows ; the rows two feet 

 apart and always pointing north and south. 



I plant my large potatoes nnicli in the same 

 wav, Iji't with wider intervals, according to the 

 height which the stems attain ; thus, one which 

 n-rows a yard high, at six inches distance from 

 centre to centre, and three feet six inches or four 

 feet between the rows, never cutting any potato, 

 nor planting one of less weight than a quarter but 

 generally half a pound. By using such large sets, 

 I get very strong and large plants with widely ex- 

 tended roots, very early in the summer. 



The blossoms take away a good deal of sap 

 which may be better employed in forming pota- 

 toes ; and whenever a potato affords seed freely, I 

 think it almost an insuperable objection to it. As 

 a feneral rule, I think that potatoes ought to be 

 planted in rows, distant from each other in pro- 

 portion to the height of the stems. The height of 

 stems being full three feet, the rows ought to be 

 four feet apart ; and the sets, of the very largest 

 varieties, planted whole, never to be more distant 

 from centre to centre than six inches. By such 

 mode of planting, the greatest possible quantities 

 of leaf (the organ, by which alone blood is made,) 

 are exposed to the light. 



The philosophy of these able nnd simple direc- 

 tions may be shoitly explained : It consists in 

 tJie exposure of the utmost possible surface of the 



respiratory organs, (the leaves,) to the agency of 

 the electrising principle of the solar light, and ot 

 corresponding breadths of soil to the influences of 

 air and lyat ; so that the roots may be enabled to 

 extend right and left to a distance somewhat ex- 

 ceeding that of the height of the stems and foliage. 

 The potato called the early champion, was that 

 with which I began my experiments, early in 

 iMarch, 1631. The soil" was that of a pasture, a 

 deep and brown sandy loam, upon a chalky sub- 

 soil, approaching to marl. This soil had been 

 trenclied in the autumn to the depth of two feet, 

 and the turf inverted at the bottom of each trench. 

 About eighty pounds of these potatoes were plant- 

 ed whole, in rows two feet asunder, running north 

 and south, the sets about six inches apart, crown 

 from crown. But as I could not obtain a suffi- 

 ciency of the variety at the time, I was constrain- 

 ed to employ such as I had, and therefore the 

 size of the potatoes was not attended to. The 

 rows were weeded early, and the stems advanced 

 regularly till the fatally destructive Cth of JMay, 

 when the frost destroyed and blackened every leaf 

 that had fairly emerged from the surface. Thus 

 I lost all the benefit that would have been other- 

 wise derived from the early developed leaves ; and 

 consequently, a considerable weight of the advanc- 

 ing crop. In a week or ten days, however, fresh 

 shoots were protruded, and as the stems advanced 

 they were deeply earthed up, that is, till the 

 whole piece of ground had the appearance of so 

 many ranks of ridges, the intervening spaces be- 

 ing twelve inches deep in the centre. This one 

 effectual earthing-up sufficed, and the crop attain- 

 ed perfect maturity in due time. The total yield 

 of potatoes (which were for the greatest part of a 

 fair average size and of most excellent quality, 

 mealy and fine in flavor,) was five hundred and 

 scvcntysix pounds. 



The early frame potato, planted the first week 

 in March, was the subject of the second experi- 

 ment. I had procured one peck weighing four- 

 teen poundsj and the tubera were cut into small 

 sets with from one to three eyes each. The sets 

 were planted in rows, pointing north and south, 

 two feet asunder, the sets being four inches apart 

 in the rows. The site was a garden plot, four 

 yards by seven yards and a half, i. e., thirty square 

 yards. The subsoil was a strong, stiff loam, and 

 this was brought to the surface by deep trenching, 

 just before it was cropped. This plot suffered 

 also from the frost above alluded too. The final 

 yield was very great, (two hundred and fiftynine 

 pounds,) but the potatoes were far from being reg- 

 ular as to size; a great proportion were small, 

 weighing little more than one or two ounces each, 

 occasioned, I doubt not, by cutting the tubers into 

 small sets. 



The third experiment commenced the 25th of 

 IMarch, when I was enabled to procure a small 

 supply of a variety styled early champions, but was 

 evidently far from true to its kind. The potatoes 

 were planted by the side of the first plot of cham- 

 pions, in rows two feet six inches asunder; the 

 sets six inches apart, crown from crown. The 

 total yield, digged up between August 25 and Sep- 

 tember 18, 1831, was one thousand two hundred 

 and nine pounds.* 



General deductions from fads. — First — I find 

 that little or nothing is gained by planting before 



the middle of March [in England] ; for if the frost 

 destroys the leaves as it did those of my first-sown 

 champions, a great loss in the product of the tu- 

 bers must inevitably be experienced. Secondly, 

 early ripened potatoes will yield an earlier crop 

 thaii others of the same variety, which have come 

 to maturity at a later period of the preceding sea- 

 son. My first champions were produced by my- 

 self, from a few roots given to me by a neighbor 

 in June, 1830. The land required to be trenched, 

 and therefore the potatoes were not in the ground 

 till the last week in the month ; hence they scarce- 

 ly ripened before the frost set in. The eightyfour 

 pounds planted in April, had been produced at the 

 usual season by a farmer, and they came in very 

 early and yielded almost dotible the quantity of 

 those first planted. It is but just, however, to 

 state that we commenced digging the latter, as 

 early young ])otatoes, in July ; and therefore, 

 scarcely two thirds remained to attain perfect ma- 

 turity. Thirdly, ash-leaved kidneys, above all 

 others, require to be planted whole ; if they are 

 not, many of them may not germinate at all. I 

 tried an experiment during last year and it was 

 decisive in its results. Henceforward I never in- 

 tend to plant a cut set of this potato, nor a whole 

 one of very small size. I trust that my experi- 

 ments on each variety that I plant during the cur- 

 rent season, will be conducted with a degree of 

 precision and exactitude, that may enable me on a 

 future occasion, to announce their particular rou- 

 tine and fuial results, in a way that shall leave no 

 doubt of the efficacy of Mr Knight's mode of 

 culture. 



CANKERWORMS AND CATERPILLARS. 



II. Van Voorhis, Esq., of Blaldcn, has commu- 

 nicated to us the follawing method of extermina- 

 ting the above mentioned insects from fruit trees, 

 the efficacy of which he assures us he has tested 

 by successful experiments. 



" He procures a sheet-iron vessel of the shape of 

 the frustruni of a hollow cone or a sugar loaf, with 

 a part of the top cut off, which is large enough to 

 hold six or seven quarts. This has a door or 

 oi)ening near its bottom, a number of holes punch- 

 ed near its top, and a socket at its bottom, to re- 

 ceive the end of a pole by which it may be eleva- 

 ted when in use. Within this vessel a fire is 

 made of tobacco stems, oil, and sulphur, mois- 

 tened a little with vifater, so as to cause a slow 

 combustion with much smoke. This apparatus is 

 held by the pole to the windward of a tree infest- 

 ed, in such a position as to cause the smoke to 

 spread over the branches to which the insects are 



attached, by which means they arc soon fumigated 



into nonentity. 



* The blossoms of every sortwhich pioduced any, were 

 mostly pinched ofl'as they appeared. 



THE BIRDS. 



We are apprehensive that among other evils 

 which are the consequences of the last winter's se- 

 verity, and its long "Ihigering in the lap of May," 

 may be the destruction of bird's, and the conse- 

 quent predominance of worms and other insects, 

 which furnish food for the farmer's feathered 

 laborers. 



We have received verbal accounts from several 

 towns in this vicinity, that the songsters arc miss- 

 ing from the groves, which they had been accus- 

 tomed to render vocal in the vernal months ; and 

 thousands have been found dead under trees, &c, 

 cut off by the inclemency of an unprecedented 

 and frightful season. 



