No. 10. 



Cultivation of Potatoes. 



317 



ers. There will be two footways on the bridge, 

 of four feet width each; two carriageways of 

 seven and a half feet each, and a rail-road 

 track. 



The floor of the bridge will be two hun- 

 dred and thirty feet above the water, and in 

 full view of the Falls above and the whirl- 

 pool below, and the bed of the river between; 

 thus adding artificial sublimity to nature's 

 grandeur, and making each contribute to the 

 other. The expense of this bridge will be 

 about two hundred thousand dollars, and the 

 grandeur of the work, and the attractions it 

 will present at this great resort of the curi- 

 ous and the fashionable, would seem to form 

 sufficient inducement for the outlay. 



But such was not the inducement. The 

 gentlemen who have undertaken it — like 

 most of our enterprising countrymen — are 

 practical and utilitarian. Lakes Erie and 

 Ontario are about thirty-six miles apart — 

 joined by the noble Niagara, passable any 

 time at only a few points, and sometimes 

 passable nowhere between the two lakes on 

 account of floating ice. On both sides of 

 the river is a thick population of Anglo-Sax- 

 ons, carrying on constant intercourse. To 

 facilitate this, and annex the two countries, 

 and join their railways, they have set them- 

 selves to erecting this stupendous and seem- 

 ingly impracticable structure. Western 

 New York desires to avail herself of the 

 transit of the Canada trade through the 

 State and take its advantages. Canada is 

 desirous of giving the Western States a pas- 

 sage through her dominions and to avail her- 

 self of whatever advantages may be gained 

 by it. 



Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin, desire 

 a winter trade, and are restless at being 

 locked up so many nibnths in the year by 

 ice from the Atlantic; and they desire also 

 to have a shorter, quicker, and safer passage 

 to the East than round through Lake Erie. 

 And the farmers in Canada and the interior 

 of the upper States are anxious to send down 

 their produce, and would not like to be stop- 

 ped by this impassable gorge in the river. 

 Our readers will therefore see that the pub- 

 lic interest of vast multitudes is very deeply 

 concerned in this enterprise, and though pre- 

 senting great inducements to the curious and 

 fanciful, it is, nevertheless, a work of vast 

 utility, in which the benefit of millions is 

 concerned. 



The prime mover of this magnificent dis- 

 play of civil engineering and combination of 

 mechanical powers, is our worthy fellow- 

 citizen Lot Clark, Esq., heretofore distin- 

 guished in the public annals of his country; 

 but certain now to be more widely and longer 

 known by this momentous enterprise. 



This suspension bridge seems worthy to 

 stand in view of that stupendous display of 

 the grandeur of nature, the Falls of Niaga- 

 ra ; the sight of which so well rewards the 

 pilgrims who come annually from all quar- 

 ters of the world to contemplate and admire 

 it. 



No reader will need to be reminded of 

 the inseparable connection which every 

 where exists between the Agriculture of 

 a country, and its roads and bridges, which 

 serve — according as they are more or less 

 perfect — to facilitate and cheapen trans- 

 portation and exchanges between rural and 

 manufacturing industry. — Skinner^s Farm- 

 ers^ Library. 



From the American Agriculturist. 

 Cultivation of Potatoes. . 



The cultivation of potatoes has become so 

 precarious for the last four or five years, that 

 it may be of service to publish an account of 

 experiments, even if they have proved un- 

 successful. I will therefore state my expe- 

 rience, such as it is, with a hope that it will 

 be of more or less benefit to those engaged 

 in the same calling as myself. 



I have planted on a variety of soils, in- 

 cluding a heavy clayey loam, gravel, black 

 vegetable earth, loam, rich in animal and 

 vegetable matter, and on a light, sandy loam. 

 In the latter, I have always succeeded in 

 raising sound potatoes, and I consider such a 

 soil the most certain of producing a sound 

 healthy crop. 



In 1845, I planted my potatoes in April, 

 May, June and July. Those planted in May, 

 I found succeeded best; and the vines of 

 those planted late, decayed early in Septem- 

 ber, soon after the young tubers began to 

 form. 



On the 15th of May, 1846, I planted an 

 acre of potatoes, on a moist loam, suitable 

 for growing Indian corn. One part of the 

 field I manured with newly slacked lime; 

 one with wood ashes; one with charcoal; 

 one with bone-dust ; one with poudrette ; 

 and another part with plaster, lime, ashes, 

 and salt, mixed. The result was, that the 

 largest yield and the least rot, occurred 

 where lime only was applied, at the time of 

 planting, in the hill. 



Observing that the two rows of potatoes 

 next to the corn, which occupied a part of 

 the last named field, were entirely free from 

 disease, and produced well, last season, (1847) 

 I planted a lot, alternately, with two rows of 

 corn, and two rows of potatoes; also, a small 

 patch exclusively with potatoes, in the same 

 field, manuring the whole with lime in the 



