1855. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



127 



and we shall be able to give many of them. The would have cross plowed, harrowed and tho- 

 Bubjcct is important. Why did not the writer } roughly pulverised the soil. One preserves his 

 give us his name ? 



HI! G'ALANG! 



Come, jump in, old pirl, 

 Aud away we will whiri, 



To contrast your rose check with the snow. 

 0, nt'er minvl the sleet — 

 Tuck that round year feet — 



All right ! Come, old hoss, way you go, 

 Over the snow, 

 Hip ; hip -; hurr& ! 

 What greater deJight 

 On a moon-gilded night, 

 With Bess at my side, 

 Than a jolly sleigh-ride — 

 Say? 



I ewe fiot fsr Care, 

 I can distance Despair, 



With a QSig that's 2.tO and sound ; 

 'Mid laughing tnd kisshig', 

 Kpeet cearly missing, 



Away we bound over the grooncL 



Through tie (jright snow, 



Hip J hip _' hoTra .' 

 What greater delight 

 Co a moor»-gilded night, 

 W^ifii Besa &t nsy side. 

 Than a jolly sleigh-ride — 



Say.' 



For the Ifew England Farmer. 



CULTIVATION OF THE POTATO. 



Messrs. Editors : — I would like to obtain, 

 through your paper, some information on the cul- 

 fcivation of the potato, from persons extensively 

 eogaged id raising them for the Boston and New 

 York markets, lam informed that this is the 

 princi{^ial business of many farmers in the south- 

 ern part of this Sta,te, and that some of them 

 plant fields of ten, twenty, and even forty acres 

 in a season. Those who are thus extensively en- 

 gaged in the business, it is to be presumed, have, 

 from their long and extensive practice, and from 

 superior attention to the most approved modes of 

 raising and harvesting their crops, acquired pos- 

 gession of many little items of information and 

 experience, which others who have bestowed less 

 attention to the sulyect, are ignorant of. I say 

 lilile items, fur these ordinarily constitute all the 

 real difference that exists in one man's perform- 

 ance of a jiiece of work over that of another ; and 

 it i? ufiually the case that in strict attention to 

 matters, which in the abstract are considered tri- 



seed for planting by keeping it fresh in the earth 

 till it is wanted for use, whilst another smokes 

 and dries it to a crisp.' One plants large tubers, 

 another small ones ; and others again prefer 

 halves, quarters, or single e3'es. With one, sci- 

 ence has demonstrated that every tuber has a 

 head and face, and that it should be deposited in 

 the ground with great care and in a certain posi- 

 tion ; with another, science is a humbug, and all 

 such care is nonsense. That mysterious planet, 

 the moon, looks down with a smiling face and 

 proffers her bountiful gifts upon her faithful vota- 

 ries ; whilst others plant just when they get 

 ready, regardless of her frown or favor. And 

 how many kinds of potatoes there are that lay 

 claim to superior qualities it would puzzle a Wall 

 Street broker to determine. One keeps up the 

 old practice of planting in hills, full four feet 

 apart, and regards any innovation upon this an- 

 cestral usage with something like the Siime ablior- 

 rence that he would the demolition of a nolde 

 school-house and the erection of a new one, after 

 looking downward and consulting the affairs of 

 the pocket. 



Another, General Barnum, for instance, of 

 Vermont, would prefer planting in drills only 12 

 inches apart, with a space of only one foot be- 

 tween the potatoes in the drill. One makes use 

 of the hoe in planting, another the plow, whilst 

 a third pays his respects to the practice of the 

 aborigines, that of depositing the seed in a hole 

 made by a pointed stick. And as to manuring, 

 why, a little more than a year since I paid a lec- 

 turer oa agriculture a dollar and a half for tell- 

 ing me how to raise crops without manure ; and 

 subsequently I paid another lecturer two dollars 

 for explaining the mysteries of cornstocking and 

 the benefits of high cultivation. Cheap enough ! 

 and there is no kind of manure or mode of appli- 

 cation that has not its advocates. As to after 

 cultur , some believe m hoeing once, some twice 

 and some three times, whilst others do not hoe at 

 all. Some make high hills, some low, some sliarp. 

 Some do all their hilling at first hoeing, otliers 

 lOiierve it for the last. And in harvesting tiiere 

 are few crops that accommodate such a diversity 

 of implements, so difierently applied for accom- 

 plishing the same result. 



Now all these different modes of selecting and 

 preserving the seed, of manuring and cultivating 

 the soil and the crop, and of harvesting aud ure 

 serving the roots, indicate an unsettled state of 

 opinion in regard to the production and general 

 manngement of the j)otato, wliich is prolmbly 

 without a parallel in tlie production and disposal 



vial, that the mast astonishing results ensue. So! of any other crop? And why all tiiis diversity? 

 far as my knowledge of potato culture extends, Is it because the potato is purlectly adajitcdto 



there Ls entire want of uniformity in every farm 

 ing community; and not only so, but there is 

 more diversity of opinion and of practice, in the 

 production of this root, than in the production of 

 any other kind of crop. 



all kinds of treatment, and that all kinds of cul- 

 tivation will eventually be rewarded alike? Or 

 is this lack of unifunuity owing to a want (if 

 thought, of stud^y and general knowledge, in 

 regard to tiie utility and feasibility of one mode 



In preparing the ground, some prefer turf' of operation over another? Most probably the 

 ground of heavy quality, to be plowed or thrown latter. AVith the mass of fanners in tiiis coun- 

 into ridges of two furrows to the ridge, late in[ try, system, in the production of tiie potato, is 

 the spring or early in summer, and dejiosite their by no means tlic order of the day. 

 seed lietween the folding clods, whilst otliers If tlie time shall ever come when tlie practice 

 would certainly have ph)wed such ground during'of farmers shall be more consistent with general 

 the precLding autumn, and, previous to planting, rules, it will be brouglit about, chiefly, througli 



