FIELD chops:. 4S 



composition and renders it soluble.- So that after a rain, •which has crusted 

 the surfiace, the cultivator should be started as soon as the soil is dry enough; 

 this tends to hold the moisture and prevent speedy evaporation. 



Raising 6ood Corn In a Dry Season. — " Some Tankee," savs a prac- 

 tical former, " Trill ask, ' How do you raise good com in a drouth ?' Ill tell. 

 I plowed and roUed my ground, spread my manure on, and harrowed it in; 

 put a handful of hen manure and fine bone composted in the hill; cultivated 

 it flat; did not hill any. When the drouth came, cultivated, but very shal- 

 low; the result was a good crop. On another plot the manure was spread 

 on the sod and turned under without any fertilizer in the hill, and was al- 

 most a failure. My neighbors report that they have very Mr com on land 

 that the manure was spread on after plowing and fertilizing in the hill." 



Hasktng. — Some people who husk com throw the shock upon the 

 grotmd, spread it out, and go to work on their knees. They know no better. 

 If they will make a frame four feet wide and long enough to hold a shock 

 after it is spread out, with a board in the middle running lengthways to sit 

 on, they will find they have done a sensible thing. The frame may be eigh- 

 teen inches high, or any other height they may like better. 



Cabbages ■wiili Com. — A writer in the Fruit Becorder says that one of 

 his neighbors planted some cabbage among his com where the com missed, 

 and the butterflies did not find them. He has therefore come to the conclu- 

 sion that if the cabbage patch were in the middle of the com patch, the but- 

 terflies would not find them, as they fly low and like plain sailing. 



Potato Coltore. — ^Destroying the potato beetle, says the American C'ul- 

 titalor, and its even more destructive larvae, has come to be the most im- 

 portant point in the successful growing of potatoes. Paris green is the com- 

 mon agent employed, though London purple is cheaper, equally effective, 

 and has the advantage, when used with water, of being soluble, while Paris 

 green, under similar conditions, is insoluble. It does not follow, however, 

 because these poisons will do the work, that every grower can make them 

 equally effective. In their iudiscriminate use the inexperienced cultivator 

 is liable to do more harm than good. The young potato shoot is very tender, 

 and either Paris green or London purple applied in too strong doses will 

 bum the vines. If the vines be injured at this early stage of their growth 

 from any cause, the resultant crop will be greatly diminished. 



For nearly all early planted potatoes, when the vine grows slowly, hand 

 picking to destroy the first crop of beetles is very important. It should be 

 performed as soon as the shoots are up, and, if possible, before any eggs are 

 Iwd. In a potato-growing section, where old beetles from last years hatch 

 appear by the thousands, this indeed involves considerable labor. In fact, 

 in such a locaUty it is not easy to grow early potatoes on a large scale. 

 From a few short rows in a garden we have picked up by count between 

 eight hundred and nine hundred beetles on a warm, sunshiny half-day, just 

 as the potatoes were coming up. The next day the process was repeated, 

 with nearly half as many beetles secured, while more or less in number 

 were gathered every subsequent day for a week. It was just at the time the 

 beeties were coming out of the ground, and the garden potatoes being early 

 planted, attracted all the beetles in the neighborhood. It is of litUe avail to 

 attempt to poison these beetles in the spring. Occasionally one will eat as 

 expected, but the majority arc too busy propagating and laying ^;g8 V> 



