290 



NEW e:^gland farmer. 



June 



Fur the New England Fanner. 



EXPERIMENTS ON THE POTATO CROP. 



Mr. Editor : — It has been repeatedly stated in 

 agricultural papers, that, in the potato crop, light 

 seeding is to be preferred ; that four eyes to the 

 hill are sufficient. To determine the truth of this 

 statement the following method was adopted. After 

 the vines were somewhat advanced, but before the 

 tubers were set, three adjacent rows were thinned 

 out so as to have in the first row four stems, in the 

 second five, and in the third six. The fourth row 

 ■was left as planted, and contained an average of 

 about seven stems to the hill. Twelve hills in each 

 row were taken for the experiment, and at digging 

 the product of each row was weighed. The fol- 

 lowing is the result : 



1st row 27 lbs. 



2nd " 33 " 



3d " 38 " 



4th " 43 " 



There was no perceptible difference in the pro- 

 portion of small potatoes. 



SECONJ) EXPERIMENT. 



The sefcond experiment was made to test the val- 

 ue of ashes in the cultivation of potatoes. The 

 ashes were applied to the whole piece with the ex- 

 ception of two rows. A common table spoonful 

 was thrown upon each hill immediately after plant- 

 ing. The produce, by weight, of twenty hills under 

 each mode of treatment, was as follows : 



20 hills with ashes 35 J lbs. 



20 hills without ashes 27^ " 



Difference 7J, or 27 per cent. 



A single experiment is not sufficient to establish 

 a principle in farming. But the result of the ex- 

 periment with ashes (unleached) seems to be worth 

 the consideration of farmers. 



The "women folks" think that the readers of the 

 Farmer ought to be made acquainted with what 

 they suppose to be a new, and are well satisfied is 

 an improved method, of stewing apples (green.) 

 The new method is this. Instead of stewing the 

 apples in a metallic vessel, put them into an earth- 

 en dish and place the dish in the steamer. The 

 disagreeable metallic taste and the danger of burn- 

 ing are thus avoided. A. w. 



Stephentown, J\r. Y., 1857. 



For the New England Farmer, 



SWEET POTATO. 



Mr. Brown:— In volume 8th of the New Eng- 

 land Farmer, Mr. Nicolas Thomas asks for infor- 

 mation respecting the culture of the sweet potato, 

 A lady now visiting me has spent 20 or 30 years 

 about the plantations of Virginia and Mississippi, 

 Wishing to raise about 80 bushels, she would pre- 

 pare a bed, say 4 by 8 feet, of light earth, raised 

 about 5 inches on the surface of the garden soil. 

 If the tubers for seed were about the size of your 

 finger, they would be planted whole ; if twice as 

 large, cut in halves longitudinally, and laid with 

 the flat side down. The seed are laid along in 

 rows, so close that they almost touch, and the bed 

 is nearly covered with them. Then cover the seed 

 witii about 3 inches of earth, (making the bed raised 

 about 8 inches.) When the sprouts are about 6 

 inches long, and the leaves pretty well formed, pull 

 them with the thumb and finger, and try to avail of 



a shower, and plant towards evening, as you would 

 young cabbages ; three or four sprouts are placed 

 in a hill, and the hills one long step each way. 

 As the sprouts do not all come forward at the 

 same time, there will be several plantings from the 

 same bed. / 



When the earth in the hills crack open, they 

 may be dug for immediate usej but the main part 

 of the crop is not dug till some days after the frost 

 has killed the vines. My friend also informs me 

 that the hest and earliest Irish potatoes she ever 

 saw raised at the South, were by having the seed 

 placed upon the surface of ground which had been 

 spaded up, then covered with straw mixed with 

 hogs' bristles, from the slaughter yard, but without 

 any earth. 



A gentleman in Worcester informs me that his 

 brother bored some apple trees (trunks about 1 

 foot in diameter,) 5 holes to a tree, 2 inches deep, 

 and f inch in diameter ; put in ipecacuanha, and 

 plugged them up. This was done in spring before 

 the trees were in full bloom. The trees were not 

 injured in the least, and the flavor of the fruit was 

 not perceptibly affected, but it was fair, and free from 

 insects. Before this he could hardly get a fair ap- 

 ple from the tree. Do you think I should be safe 

 in trying the experiment ? Yours truly, o. 



Worcester County, May, 1857. 



EXCESSIVE SMOKING. 



The last number of the New York Medical Ga- 

 zette contains an article on the ill effects produced 

 by the excessive smoking of tobacco, from which 

 we take the following extract : 



"Besides the necessary effect upon the head, of 

 the marked irritating action, is the superabundant 

 secretion of saliva, and of the humors salutary in 

 their nature, destined, when in due proportion, to 

 maintain the first acts in the digestive process. 

 And these abundant secretions not unusually at the 

 cessation of the stimulus become altered, with re- 

 markable dryness of the fauces, of the tongue, and 

 of the oesophagus, which obliges the smoker to seek 

 new means of stimulus, in alcoholic drinks, which 

 increases the primitively injurious effects of tobac- 

 co. That ptyalism continued for a long time should 

 be an efficient cause of injury to the animal organ- 

 ism, no one will deny, when they reflect that by 

 these means are abstracted from the blood those 

 principles which in normal quantity are necessary 

 to the integrity of the organs and functions, and 

 that if the ordinary secretion of any gland is con- 

 tinually increased, the humor secreted will be altered 

 in its elemental constituents, and consequently be- 

 come less adapted to those offices naturally reserv- 

 ed to them. Every time, said Boerhave, speaking 

 of saliva, any one makes a useless waste of this se- 

 cretion, he is deprived of a great inciter of the ap- 

 petite and a great aid to digestion. The chyle, to 

 the preparation of which this fluid does not concur, 

 is of bad quality, and the blood remains more or 

 less altered. To this authority many others can be 

 added, but let that of CuUen, Tissot and Bernard 

 suffice." 



The article proceeds to consider the injurious ef- 

 fects upon other parts of the system, and particular- 

 ly the apparatus of respiration. 



