PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 295 



as formerly, to plant land that will raise only a small crop. 

 Yet it is to be remembered that any manuring that produces 

 very abundant vines, makes more difficult the fight with the 

 bugs. The potatoes should be planted a little farther apart 

 than we are accustomed to plant them, and such manures 

 should be used as will not promote an excessive growth of 

 vines. Finally, to sum up, — 



1. Plant a few potatoes in your field as early as possible, 

 and destroy the bugs as they appear on them. 



2. For the main crop, plant at good distance between the 

 hills and manure well with ashes or such manures as do not 

 specially promote the growth of vines. 



3. Pass through the field, after the potatoes are up, once a 

 week until the time of blossoming, picking all bugs, larvae 

 and eggs that appear. 



4. If for any reason the bugs get beyond the hand-picking, 

 use poison till every bug is destroyed, if not for your own 

 crop, for the benefit of others. 



5. As bad as the potato-bug is, remember that no other 

 injurious insect can be more surely kept in subjection and 

 destroyed than it ; that those who are determined to raise 

 potatoes can raise them at an extra expense of not over five 

 cents per bushel, in spite of the bugs and their allies, the indo- 

 lent farmers, who feed them. 



6. Do not wait till the second crop of bugs appears, and 

 then try to demonstrate that hand-picking is powerless against 

 such an army ; because that is conceded in the beginning, 

 without any waste of words. 



7. If you are not determined to kill by hand or poison, 

 every bug that appears on your crop, then do not, as a good 

 neighbor, plant at all. 



The several reports of Delegates, and the Essays presented, 

 were read a second time by their titles, and accepted ; when 

 the Board adjourned. 



It will be recollected that in my report for 1872, the 

 twentieth of the series, I took occasion to controvert the false 

 assertions, based on the United State census of 1870, that 

 the agriculture of this State was declining. Such assertions 



