128 The Potato 



Maine/ unless soil moisture conditions are fairly certain 

 to be favorable at the time of the second application. 

 Nitrate of soda may be applied at any time, as it is so 

 easily dissolved. Success with any method of applying 

 fertilizer depends on soil moisture conditions. The correct 

 method in one case may be entirely wrong in another. 



The writer has developed, for his own farm conditions, 

 a method which has been very successful for applying 

 large amounts of fertilizer. The soil is a silt loam of good 

 water-holding capacity, further increased by the incorpora- 

 tion of large quantities of organic matter. The total rain- 

 fall for the whole year averages under 30 inches. Periods 

 of dry weather after planting, sometimes extending to 

 several weeks, keep the surface soil very dry. In some 

 fertilizer experiments, acid phosphate applied as a top- 

 dressing after planting did not become dissolved to produce 

 much increase in yield. At the same time, when it was 

 applied deeper in the soil before planting, a good increase 

 resulted. The soil is deep, and potato roots easily pene- 

 trate to the depth of several feet. The fertilizer is usually 

 1500 to 2000 pounds of a mixture of acid phosphate and 

 muriate of potash. 



Part of the fertilizer is sown broadcast in early spring 

 on the surface of fall-plowed land, thoroughly disked in to 

 the depth of 7 to 8 inches and the field replowed to the 

 depth of 10 inches. The remainder of the fertilizer is then 

 applied and disked in as before. The essential idea of this 

 method is to have a large amount of fertilizer so evenly 

 and thoroughly distributed through the soil to the depth 

 of 10 inches that the potato roots are drawn out and down 

 completely to fill this whole space, rather than to have a 

 tendency to remain in the more limited space occupied 

 1 Maine Agri. Expt. Sta. Bui. 246. 



