108 MY GROWING GARDEN 



replanted with seed soaked in formalin to ward 

 off "scab," and as any foliage got four or five 

 inches high it was sprayed and sprayed and 

 sprayed. Bugs? They never had a chance ! Weeds? 

 Neither did they have any peace in which to start 

 or to grow. But eventual potatoes? Not so many 

 as went into the ground as seed, alas ! 



Of course I have not lacked the telling why, 

 from many wiseacres. Ground too rich, ground 

 too poor; fertilizer should have been strewn to the 

 left instead of the right; planted in the wrong 

 aspect of the moon; they were grown flat, they 

 were hilled too much; too much cultivating, too 

 much spraying and so on. But when the con- 

 ditions were carefully detailed to a competent 

 Cornell professor, he frankly said he didn't know 

 why, except that none of the reasons I have men- 

 tioned were effective. 



This year I am growing my potatoes somewhere 

 else, with plain "greenback" fertilizer, permitting 

 some one else to do the spraying and the "bug- 

 ging." I have planted a row of one of the very early 

 sorts, in the hope that such a little bit of a planting 

 may miss the blight patrols, and allow us to have 

 for the July table those smooth little tubers, half- 

 grown, that are a delicacy rather than a food 

 staple. 



