244 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



May 



POTATOES. 



Jfuch lias hpt'u suid and written on raising po- 

 tatoes ; and although I am not much of a farmer, 

 yet I have taken some little pains to inform my- 

 self of tlie hest way. 



1st. I tliink t'-e host land for potatoes is on our 

 side hills, which is generally a deep loam and rather 

 moist. The potatoes are not so likely to be in- 

 jured by frost as in lower land, nor so subject to 

 blast or rust : moreover this is the natural soil for 

 a great crop. 



2d. As to manure, forty common loads is none 

 too much for an acre. If I had a thousand acres 

 of land, and but forty loads of manure for my po- 

 tato ground, I would plant but one acre if the 

 land was not rich. 



1 am ac(piainted with two farmers who live' 

 near each other. The soil of their farms is very 

 much alike ; one uses forty loads, while the other 

 uses eighteen to twenty loads of manure l^ev acre. 

 The first has generally 400 bushels of potatoes to 

 the acre, and the last 200 to 250. This is not all 

 the former gains. Ilis land holds out several years 

 for other crops ; while the latter has but a small 

 crop even the second year. 1 



3d. Tiie seed of potatoes ought to be changed' 

 every five or si^years. Even if the seed is brought , 

 but two or three miles, the crop will be much bet- ! 

 ter. I 



4th. As to planting, I think the rows ought to^ 

 be about three and tiiree and a half feet apart, and 

 the hills eighteen inches or two feet apart, and the 

 potatoes cut for planting a large one in three 

 pieces, and those smaller in tvro pieces (no small 

 ones should be planted) and three pieces put in 

 each hill. I have tried whole ones ; they do not 

 spread to well, and therefore do not produce so 

 much as cut ones. I planted three years since 



2 rows with 4 pieces in a hill, 

 2 do. 3 do. in a hill, 

 2 do. 2 do. in a hill, 



2 do. 3 eye end pieces in a hill, 



2 do. 3 butt end pieces in each hill. 



The butt ends weighed one-sixteenth more than 

 the eye ends. 



The product was as follows, viz : — The rows 

 •with 4 pieces yielded 10 bushels — many small 

 ones. 



Rows of 3 pieces, 10 bushels — not many small 

 ones. 



Of 2 pieces, 9 bushels there were very few small 

 ones. 



The rows of eye ends, 9J^ bushels — many small 

 ones. 



And the two rows of butt ends, 10^ bushels — 

 and the best in the whole lot. 



I have tried it since with the same or nearly 

 the same success. 



[ should not have believed the butt ends would 

 have produced the best crop if I had not tried it ; 

 for some, even many of the pieces did not appear 

 to have any germ ; and the reader has the same 

 liberty not to believe it until he tries it. 



I saw in your last Visitor some experiments of 

 EViiis Frost on raising potatoes. He says he planted 

 5 lbs. 9 oz. of eye ends* and on the same quantity 

 of ground planted 3 lbs, 10 oz. of the butt ends, 

 and had the best crop and largest potatoes from 

 the eye ends. Now he ought to have cut the po- 

 tatoes so that the butt ends would have been as 

 large, and even larger than the eye ends, as the 



butt end has fewer germs. If he will try again, 

 and give the butt end a fair chance, he will prob- 

 ably come to a different conclusion. 



For the New E-iii^land Fanner. 



PRUNING TREES AND SUN-SCALD. 



Mr. Bruwx : — I am glad to see Mr. Little's re- 

 marks on pruning, &c. Now Mr. Little, I think, 

 cannot intend to go into raising apples on a large 

 scale, or if he does, it must be where land is not 

 so valuable as it is in Brookline. Here we are 

 under the necessity of making tlie most of our 

 land. My neighbor. Farmer Jones, has forty acres 

 of land ; most of it is planted with apple, pear, 

 plum and cherry trees, the apple trees from 35 to 

 40 feet apart ; he raises all kinds of green sauce 

 for the market, as well as hay and grain. Mr. 

 Jones cultivates every foot of his land, orchard, 

 and all ; he breaks it up every third year, after 

 laying it down, and cultivates at first for potatoes, 

 squashes, melons, corn, and then the next year 

 for peas, beans, or other crops. He generally 

 gets two crops a year ; a crop of peas, and then 

 sweet corn, beets or potatoes, and then turnips ; 

 sometimes three crops, first spinach, then lettuce, 

 and after that beets. So you see that we are un- 

 der the necessity of pruning our trees in the old 

 way (but not as broom-sticks, but more like a 

 large umbrella,) and by doing this we cut off the 

 branches when young and trim our trees about 

 six feet high, and then let them brancii out, not 

 leaving too many branches ; three or four is enough. 

 This enables us to plow, harrow, or do anything 

 else we choose in our orchards, and by plowing 

 every third year and then cultivating two years, 

 our trees are always free of roots on the surface. 

 They get well manured, trimmed of all suckers 

 or superabundance of limbs, and all interfering 

 branches, while they are small, by which means 

 we give them a most beautiful top, and they in re- 

 turn give us a most plentiful crop of large, fair 

 fruit, without any fear of sun-scald. Out of four 

 hundred trees, I do not think a single tree can 

 be found with sun-scald ; we wash them every 

 spring with potash, a pound to eight gallons of 

 water, which kills the scales and lice, and then 

 we scrape off the loose bark, taking care not to 

 scrape too deep, so as to expose the inner bark ; 

 this will remove all the vermin and insects that 

 have secreted themselves under the bark, or in any 

 crevice in or on the tree. The fall is the best 

 time to trim or prune trees ; February and March 

 to wash and scrape them. February and March 

 is the best time to salt plum ti-ces, and cut away 

 any fungus or black warts. If Mr. Little will, 

 when in Boston, get into the Brookline cars, they 

 will bring him to my house in ten minutes, and 

 I shall be happy to show him the broomsticks 

 that he speaks of, and also the manner in which 

 Farmer Jones does things on his farm — also mine 

 on a small scale. S. A. Suurtleff. 



Gone to Farming. — We have great hope of the 

 world yet — it grows more and more sensible every 



day. 



"Hope springs perennial in the human breast," 



certainly it does — and that hope with nearly all 

 men is, that at some time, not far distant, they 



