1851. 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



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ments which appear improbable, if strictly true. — ■ 

 We have paid particular attention to the culture of 

 potatoes from our boyhood till this present writinf^. 

 No part of the answers sent to the Patent Office from 

 all parts of the United States, in response to 8000 

 circular letters, has interested us so much as the 

 responses to questions concerning the cultivation 

 and yield of potatoes. In the report recently sent to 

 Congress, of which the joint committee have report- 

 ed in favor of printing 130,000 copies, Mr. O. C. 

 Motley, of Clatsop Plains, Oregon, near the mouth 

 of the Columbia River, says, under date of December 

 15, 1S50, that "the average yield -per acre, on ma- 

 nured land, is 400 bushels. Cost of culture ten 

 cents ; price at the last harvest $2,75 a bushel ; 

 giving $1,100 in cash for an acre of potatoes." 

 We have reliable information that wheat, potato, and 

 turnip crops, are usually excellent in that Territory. 

 Beef is worth from 15 to 25 cents per pound, butter 

 a dollar, and cheese 75 cents. A good dairy cow is 

 worth $75, which is cheap, considering that half her 

 butter for a year will pay for her. Potato crops in 

 Utah are quite as good as those in Oregon. In Iowa, 

 fresh lands rich in decaying sod and potash, have 

 produced an average of 300 bushels of potatoes to the 

 acre. In New England, the average is not over 75 

 bushels. Let the farmers of Iowa practice after the 

 New England plan of wasting the raw material for 

 making potatoes 50 years, and the soils that now 

 yield 300 bushels of sound potatoes, will produce no 

 more than 75, and they will be extremely prone to 

 premature decay. 



To our mind, there is no more mystery about the po- 

 tato rot, than there is about the rot of an unripe frost- 

 bitten pumpkin ; or the rotting of apples and onions. 

 Whatever weakens the organic functions of a living 

 being, no matter whether an animal or plant, nor 

 whether the injury be done by frost or heat, by poison 

 or starvation, the effect is to hasten death and the 

 " rot" incident to' it. In the potato malady, the con- 

 stitutional strength of the plant has been impaired by 

 many years of bad treatment, so that even seedlings 

 fail to possess the same vital force which its own 

 family enjoyed ten generations back. A feeble child, 

 afflicted with hereditary scrofula, is past receiving a 

 new ana perfectly sound constitution. In a similar 

 manner, plai.+s have different degress of vital force, 

 or constitutional power ; so that two seeds of wheat, 

 corn, or "eyes" of potatoes, shall proJuce very unlike 

 results in offspring, or crops, under circumstances 

 precisely similar. Changing seeds is founded on 

 this principle. Too many farmers constantly breed 

 downward instead of upward — deteriorating vital en- 

 ergy in place of improving it. Families of men, 

 and all inferior organizations, are liable to "run out," 

 provided the physical laws of their being are habit- 

 ually violated. It is not a temporary pcs'Jlence that 

 causes the disaster, but the pestilence and premature 

 death are the effects of human action performed 

 through ignorance. Man does a thousand things that 

 operate to shorten his own life through ignorance and 

 folly, as well as to induce the potato rot. Instead 

 of regarding this malady and cholera as special in- 

 flictions of Providence, they should be treated on 

 scientific principles, as one would treat fever and 

 ague, or as he would create a great smoke in an or- 

 chard on a frosty night, to avoid losing fruit when the 

 trees were in blossom. The effects of a killing frost 

 are to be prevented, not cured. So, too, the prema- 

 ture decomposition of potatoes must be prevented, not 



cured. This prevention consists not merely in sup 

 plying a due quantity of potash to the soil where the 

 plant is cultivated, but in carefully avoiding all 

 excess of moisture, all deficiency in good healthy 

 mould, and in clean culture, after every mineral ele- 

 ment required by nature to form perfect plants is 

 furnished in proper proportions. On good sod, fairly 

 rotting a mixture of ashes, lime, and gypsum ; or 

 ashes and salt, thoroughly incorporated with the 

 soil ; we have seen operate most satisfactorily many 

 years. 



In the volcanic regions of Utah, Oregon, aud Cal- 

 ifornia, the soil abounds in alkalies in a peculiar 

 degree ; and while the climate of those regions is 

 well adapted to the potato plant, the earth is not less 

 favorable to the growth of starch in tubers, and of 

 wood in the mammoth trees of an Oregon forest. 

 We have said repeatedly, in public addresses, that pot- 

 ash and soda, which so abound in the alkaline springs 

 of the Rocky Mountains, and in those that feed the 

 salt lake of Utah, will one day be brought into the 

 old states to aid in organizing carbon and the ele- 

 ments of water, into starcn, oil, sugar, and wood. 

 Potash is now worth five dollars per 100 lbs. for 

 agricultural purposes ; and it cannot well be lower, 

 so long as one-third of the earthy matter in a bushel 

 of wheat is pure alkali. Soils that abound in the 

 alkalies, potash, and soda, and in the alkaline min- 

 erals lime, magnesia, and ammonia, are distinguished 

 for the magnificence of their forests, provided the 

 climate is not too rigorous. Constitutionally sound 

 potatoes planted in fresh soils, where immense oaks, 

 hickory, sugar maple, elm, and black walnut grow, 

 festooned v/ith grape vines six or seven inches in 

 diameter, have never failed, to our knowledge, to 

 yield satisfactory crops, when properly cultivated. 

 The farmer is bound to comply with all che conditions 

 of nature in maintaining health and fruitfulness, or 

 he has no right to expect either. 



The United States census shows that in one cojnty 

 in Georgia, with a population of over 7000, there was 

 not a single death in the year preceeding June 1st, 

 1850. We venture to affirm that one can not find 

 much decaying vegetable or animal matter ia that 

 county to poison either the air or water consumed by 

 its inhabitants. Of course, the land is not rich, the 

 soil being mostly sand, and the forest being exclu- 

 sively pine. 



Mulching Irish potatoes is very useful at the south, 

 and beneficial every where by moderating the ex- 

 tremes of heat and cold and keeping the surface of 

 the earth moist. At the south, a covering of forest 

 leaves is mostly used ; at the north, straw is abund- 

 ant and might, in addition to forest leaves, be spread 

 over the ground between rows and quite up to the 

 stems of t!ie plants. A climate where the thermom- 

 eter never indicates a higher temperature than 70°, 

 is best for the solanum tuberosum. As a general rule, 

 early planting is best, on deeply plowed land abound- 

 ing in natural mould, strengthened by wood ashes. 

 Some times strong, green manures operates well ; 

 but the practice is like giving large doses of calomel 

 in a critical case — it is hazurdons. It is a little more 

 difficult to raise a first rate crop of potatoes than of 

 corn or wheat. A strong sod broken in March or 

 the fall, turned handsomely, and manured with well 

 rotteJ compost containing leached ashes, a little 

 salt and gypsum, will do the business. Much is 

 gained by frequently stirring the earth with the cul- 

 tivator or plow ; bnt no amount of tillage can form 



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