248 



The Potatoe Crop. — Tlie Peach- Worm. 



Vol. VI. 



check them ; and this one circumstance is 

 oftentimes the cause of securing the crop. 

 The land was prepared by an autumnal 

 ploughinjx, find sometimes tv;n, when requi- 

 site; so tliat when the furrow came to be 

 turned on to the sets, it mouldered over them 

 like ashes, the dung having been carried on 

 to the land during the frosts of winter, and 

 spread when the season would admit. The 

 business of planting commenced by throwing 

 out a furrow, in which the sets were placed 

 about 14 or 1.5 inches distant, and then came 

 boys with rakes, pulling in upon them the 

 dung from the land designed for the next two 

 furrows, when the planters again followed, 

 and then the rakers: thus the land v.'as plant- 

 ed in every alternate furrow, in which only 

 the dung was placed. After the field was 

 planted, it was well harrowed, and very care- 

 fully spread with a thick coat of lime that 

 had been slaked on the ground by being co- 

 vered, a basketful in a heap, by tiirowing a 

 little earth on it, which effected the business 

 in a surprisingly short space of time, and in 

 the most complete manner; and a single flat- 

 hoeing of the weeds, completed the labour 

 until the time of taking up, unless, perhaps, 

 the pulling by hand a few single weeds that 

 might have escaped the operation of the hoe. 

 The crop was generally taken up by the 

 plough, and always proved very superior to 

 those that were planted by any other mode, 

 especially in seasons of drought, when the 

 common system of moulding up, is attended 

 by very uncommon injury to the crop. My 

 potatoes were always of a very regular size, 

 with no small and ill-formed roots or small 

 tubers growing to the larger ones, those being 

 occasioned by moulding up the crop while 

 growing, which operation, forcing on another 

 start in vegetation, it expends itself in the 

 formation of small and incipient tubers, to the 

 very great deterioration ot^ the crop and its 

 delay in ripening. I ought to have said, I al- 

 ways selected my seed from the finest pota- 

 toes that I could obtain at any price, cutting 

 one eye only to a piece, and planting as soon 

 as cut; and in this way I have raised more 

 than 700 bushels per acre, with far less la- 

 bour and expense than others have bestowed 

 on crops of less than half that quantity, and 

 of very inferior quality. A good coat of lime 

 spread on the land after planting the potatoes 

 operates surprisingly, first, as destroying the 

 worms and grubs, second, by its antiseptic 

 property, retarding the action of the dung, 

 and preventing it from giving forth its whole 

 powers during the early growth of the crop; 

 preserving it until the time of ripening, when 

 the most of its vigour is required ; and, third, 

 in preventing a surface-srrowth of weeds, 

 which I am convinced that it does in a re- 

 markable manner ; and all this is ejected by 



the water which percolates through the sur- 

 face-soil after every rain. In every way its 

 use is great, but in none more than in the 

 benefit which it yields to the following crop, 

 which ought always to be oats, seeded with 

 clover; my custom being, as soon as the po- 

 tatoes are removed, to plough up the ground 

 into wide ridges, called reaches, so to lie all 

 winter, and on this surface, without another 

 ploughing, to harrow in the oats, four bushels 

 of seed per acre in February if the season 

 will admit. 



I find that some person declares that he 

 has found the largest crops of potatoes to be 

 raised from the stalk-end of the tuber — now 

 this is contrary to all my experience, having 

 always found the best and earliest crops to 

 spring from the eye-eiid of the potatoe — a 

 larger yield and an earlier harvest by two or 

 three weeks ; the quality also being very su- 

 perior. PVom an experiment which I made 

 with the tliin cuttings from the eye-end of 

 the potatoe, taken off while preparing for 

 cooking — the pieces often not larger or much 

 thicker than a twenty-five cent piece — I have 

 raised the best crop that I overgrew, uniform 

 in size and early in growth, the slices weigh- 

 ing at the time of planting 100 pounds, the 

 crop on taking up weighing 2240 pounds. 



V. 



Philadelphia, March 4, 1842. 



The Peach-Worm. 



" Mr. L. Piiysick had always observed 

 that on soils containing nitrate and muriate 

 of soda the peach-tree lives luxuriantly to an 

 advanced age, while on soils immediately ad- 

 joining, premature decay takes place. This 

 led him to an examination, and the result was 

 a confirmation of his opinion that the effect 

 was produced by the presence of these salts. 

 He therefore commenced experiments with 

 salt and saltpetre, in the year 1836, on a 

 peach-orchard six years old, with the trees 

 full of worms, many of them dead, and but 

 very few with the appearance of health. 

 Clover was sown upon the land that spring, 

 and it remained in grat-s until last fall, when 

 it was ploughed and sown with wheat. The 

 result is a perfect conviction that the appli- 

 cation in the month of March of half a pound 

 of saltpetre and salt, equal parts of each, on 

 the surface of the land, and in contact with 

 the trunk, will not only add new vigour to 

 the growth of the tree, but protect it from the 

 worm, and almost insure a crop of fruit." — 

 Alb. Cult. 



Agriculture is the commanding interest — 

 nor can all other interests of a secular nature 

 combined, be brought into competition with it. 



