MAKUKING FOE SWEET POTATOES. 59 



CHAPTER XIX. 

 MANURING FOR SWEET FOTATO'E^.— Additional 



The manures best adapted to the wants of the sweet 

 potato are partially given in Chapter VI. of this work, 

 but more special information is required, which is given 

 here. 



There is nothing much superior to well-rotted stable 

 manure, applied in hills or drills. The superphosphates, 

 bone meal, ammoniated bone, woods earth, wood ashes, 

 potash, wood-pile and fence-corner scrapings, all give 

 satisfactory results. Some cultivators apply from two to 

 four hundred pounds of ammoniated superphosphate, 

 containing potash, per acre. Others use old, decomposed, 

 home-made manure, mixed with ashes and acid phos- 

 phate, in the open furrows or in the hills. 



A correspondent in the " Southern Cultivator'' desired 

 to know: "What would be the cheapest — good stable 

 manure that is hauled four miles, or cotton seed deliv- 

 ered on the farm at fifteen cents per bushel ? The stable 

 manure costs twenty-five cents per ton." To which 

 the editor replied : "The stable manure is the cheap- 

 est, if of good quality, and more likely to give satisfac- 

 tory results. Rating the labor at fifty cents a day, and 

 making two trips a day, a load or ton would cost fifty 

 cents, exclusive of the use of team and wagon. The last 

 item IS a nominal one to a farmer, usually rated only as 

 wear and tear. In this view of the case, a wagon load of 

 manure would cost only a little more than three bushels 

 of cotton seed — and, we would add, if well rotted, the 

 stable manure would be to the crop double the value of 

 the cotton seed." 



When sweet potatoes are cultivated in new grounds of 

 moderate depth of soil, very little if any fertilizers are 



