72 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[May, 



plowed it crosswise, harrowed it in the same 

 way first, then cross-harrowed it with a double 

 Scotch harrow. I then opened the drills thirty 

 inches apart and five inches deep. This I did 

 with a two-horse plow. I then dropped the 

 sets twelve inches apart and covered with a 

 common hoe by hand, level with the surface. 

 This is to have a level surface and to have the 

 stalks all come up evenly. I then ran the 

 roller over them. I planted from the 18th to 

 the 21st of May, 1856. I grew on this acre 

 the Jenny Lind and Prince Albert. My seed 

 was prepared in the following manner : I cut 

 all my potatoes two or three weeks before 

 planting, leaving but one eye to each set. 

 When thef are cut I spread them on a loft, 

 and sprinkle them over with a little slaked 

 lime, to heal the cuts. By this system I have 

 no sets rot in the ground, and am sure of hav- 

 ing no vacancies. I also get a much evener 

 crop of potatoes, as the one stem, from the 

 one eye, will give you a large potato, and all 

 about an equal size. Two or three stalks will 

 give you a lai-ger quantity of small potatoes, 

 but they will not be fit for market. If I grew 

 potatoes to feed cattle I should cut my sets 

 with two or three eyes to each set. My object 

 in that case would be quantity, not quality. 

 The sample before you will prove that my 

 practice is correct. I had no small potatoes 

 in them ; they have been as you see them. 



After Culture.— Ahout two or three weeks 

 after planting I give them a good harrowing 

 with a Scotch double-harrow. If the ground 

 should be caked I lay a weight on the harrow, 

 so that the teeth penetrate the soil two or 

 three inches. This answers two purposes ; it 

 lets the stems come through quicker, and cuts 

 up the weeds. K there should come on a rain 

 immediately after this operation, I repeat it 

 after the ground dries, which keeps all clear of 

 ■weeds — a very essential point in potato culture. 

 When the stems are three or four inches 

 hish I nin Knox's horse-hoe through the drills 

 four or five times during their growth. I do 

 not use a plow with them, neither do I use a 

 hoe to them. Knox's horse-hoe puts a suffi- 

 cient quantity of earth to the stems. A com- 

 mon cultivator with teeth reversed would 

 answer. 



One acre of Jenny Lind and Prince Albert 

 potatoes yielded, under the above treatment, 

 two hundred and sixty-eight bushels of table 

 potatoes, measured (the acre) by a surveyor. 

 Two barrels of potatoes planted over an acre 

 of land. The total produce of two barrels 

 was two hundred and ninety-four bushels of 

 table potatoes, measured by a sea'.ed half 

 bushel, and each half bushel heaped in 

 measuring. 



This statement was elicited by the fact, that 

 in the earlier part of the same volume several 

 large crops of potatoes had been reported by 

 correspondents who had used seed cut small, 

 to which the late C. E. Goodrich, of Utica, 

 so widely known as an experimenter with 

 potatoes, had replied in the issue of May 14th, 

 in opposition to the practice. In the number 

 of June lath, Mr. Howatt rejoined, giving 

 his views in opposition to Mr. Goodrich's 

 reasoning, and enclosing the above statement 

 with the following remarks : 



"I have tried all systems of potato culture, 

 the five and six-eye system, the half-potato 

 system, and the wonderful small potato sys- 

 tem. * * If you want a good crop of potato 

 stalks, plant a potato with five or six eyes on 

 it, but if you want good tubers, plant a set 

 with one eye. * * I have grown them in 

 this country for the last six years on the one- 

 eye system with perfect success, and have 

 taken premiums (first) at the Allegheny 

 County, Pa., Agricultural Society, the Pitts- 

 burg, Pa., Horticultural Society, and I think 

 at the Pennsylvania State meeting. Let both 

 systems be tried and the results published— 

 the sets being prepared as I do mine, and 

 plant the same as other potatoes, either for 

 forcing or field culture." 

 Mr. Howatt now adds : 

 Ml-. Clymer's one-dollar prescription is not 

 quite right, however. He says : Take the 

 potato— ordinary seed— cut away enough of 



the seed end to remove the cluster of eyes 

 there situated (cutting these away at once 

 saves much time, and does no injury to the 

 seed.) Then cut out all the remaining eyes, 

 except two, with the point of the knife, 

 softened and bent round, to form a quarter- 

 inch gouge. (This, with a three or four-inch 

 blade, makes the most convenient tool, but 

 an ordinary pocket-knife will do very well.) 

 'Amy may then be rolled in a plaster ; but this 

 is not inclispensable. 



Much of this is simply to mislead. He 

 says cut away the seed end, but it is well 

 known to all potato men that the eyes at the 

 seed end will mature from one to two weeks 

 earlier than the other eyes. He says to throw 

 them away. I commence cutting at the root 

 end, throwing it away, or rather feeding it, 

 as it is well known that the eyes immediately 

 at the root end will produce small and later 

 potatoes. He speaks of the point of his knife 

 softened, and made into a gouge, and it is 

 strange to me that he has not got up a patent 

 knife for the purpose. But it is well known 

 that a pocket-knife is not fit to cut a potato ; 

 the back is too thick, and if the potato is 

 hard it will split it. A table knife is proper, 

 and the best. Had he said, in the fall spread 

 out your small potatoes in the sun, to get 

 thoroughly greened, which makes the flesh 

 harder and ripens tlie eyes, I should have 

 said he knew a little. As to covering with 

 plaster, he has never tried it, and lost them. 

 Plaster is cold, and if they are covered with 

 it, it draws the frost. Having seen last spring 

 thirteen barrels so froztn in shed, I know. 

 Had they been covered with lime, that would 

 not be the result, lime being heating. 



In conclusion, I advise Mr. Clymer first to 

 learn how to grow a potato properly, and then 

 give us the result, and we shall be glad to 

 copy from him. 



KEEPING WORK AHEAD. 



Though most farmers and gardeners know 

 well the value of startmg early in their war 

 against weeds, the importance of the task is 

 very apt to be forgotten in the hurry of spring 

 work. We scarcely need give the advice as 

 advice, but a suggestion is always encourag- 

 ing, and the more so when we know it to be 

 true. 



The great trouble with most of us is that 

 we lay out too much work for ourselves to do. 

 We get a great many things half done, and 

 work twice as hard as need be, when the same 

 amount of labor judiciously expended would 

 have a threefold result. This is just how it is 

 in the war against weeds. 



We arc accustomed to get into such a 

 " flurry " about getting in the crops in time 

 that we forget the weed crop is ahxady in, and 

 going on at a rapid pace. We huve not un- 

 frequently seen the greatest exertion in getting 

 in seeds or plants that would have done just 

 as well a week later, when the same time 

 spent in harrowing or weeding ground, would 

 have been equal to four times the time at a 

 later period. These remarks of course apply 

 more to garden than to farm work. Where 

 horse-power is at hand weeds half an inch 

 high, if annual weeds, are as easUy destroyed 

 by a broad-toothed cultivator as if they were 

 but just pushing through the ground ; but in 

 garden work a simple raking of the ground 

 when the .seeds are just sprouting is quite as 

 effective as the best hoeing would be. An 

 hour or two raking of a garden between the 

 rows of the various crops will, in fact, almost 

 render hoeing unnecessary, and thus save 

 many a hard day's work. 



Some Hints on Tree Planting. 

 Calling into a nursery some time since, the 

 subject of tree-planting came up, and the re- 

 mark was made that there was a great differ- 

 ence in trees in regard to the ease with which 

 they would recover from the necessary injuries 

 of removal. One friend dissented from this. 

 He contended that one species of the tree was 

 just as easy to remove as another one. He 

 said the difficulty was in the lack of knowledge 

 of those who professed to be tree-planters. 

 Here, for instance, would be a row of oaks, 



there of tulip trees, another of some other 

 thing generally regarded as hard to trans- 

 plant, yet all were doing equally well. Hun- 

 dreds of trees, two or three feet apart, were 

 all growing and doing well, one after another, 

 just as they had been planted, without a single 

 failure among them all. It was regarded as 

 ignorance which made a tree die provided it 

 had roots, these roots not permitted to dry 

 before planting, and the earth firmly set in 

 about the roots. All this being granted, our 

 friend believed, and his success warranted his 

 faith, that no tree ought to die if the planter 

 knew his business. Some trees are of a softer 

 wood than another, and the softer the wood 

 the more they should be pruned at transplant- 

 ing. The hard, close-grained, wooded trees, 

 such as red or sugar maple, would do tol :rably 

 well with a little pruning ; the silver maple, 

 with a softer wood, required more, and so on, 

 just as the bark or wood was light or porous 

 or not. 



The difficulty which many people find in 

 getting willow trees to grow shows that there 

 is much sense in this view. Many persons set 

 them out with all the slender twigs attached 

 to them, and they have great difficulty in get- 

 ting a good growth. We have seen such wil- 

 lows stand a whole year with only a leaf here 

 and there, often half the slender wood becom- 

 ing entirely dead, and very often the tree dying 

 outright ; and all this too with trees having 

 an abundance of roots. 



Now, if we take a large branch of a willow 

 tree and make a post of it, cutting away all the 

 branches but the one single, thick post, and 

 stick it in the ground precisely as all posts 

 are, it will grow, and in a few days push out 

 an immense mass of green foliage. If we put 

 in a thousaud of them all will do the same. 

 We could safely say, that not one of such 

 thousand would die. Yet we see in the un- 

 pruned willows how they go off, and indeed 

 just in proportion to the free, vigorous head 

 on the transplanted willow is the danger of 

 loss. 



Surely here is a hint by which all may 

 profit. In proportion as the wood is soft is 

 the danger of drying up ; and in proportion 

 to the danger of drying should the pruning- 

 knife be used. There is room for intelligence 

 here.— Oermantown Telegraph. 



COMPOSTS FOR TOBACCO. 



The following we clip from the Bichmond 

 Tobacco Joicrnal: 



For tobacco, in making composts, more 

 potash must be used and less phosphoric acid 

 (bone). It should be remarked, that if dis- 

 solved bone is used in composts, gypsum 

 (plaster) will not be necessary, as the dissolved 

 bone will furnish enough sulphuric acid to 

 prevent the escape of ammonia. If ground 

 bone, not dissolved, is used, then gypsum 

 must be applied to the compost heap. 



One thousand poimds of tobacco (which is a 

 good crop per acre,) are found in the air-dry 

 state to contain : 



POTTNDS. 

 Phosphoric acid, equal to - - - - - 8.6 

 Sulphuric acid, equal to - - - - - 9.3 

 Lime, equal to - ----- 88.3 



Magnesia, equal to - 25.0 



Potash, equal to - - - - - - 73.7 



Silica, equal to ------ 23.0 



This shows that tobacco requires a large 

 amount of potash and a very moderate quan- 

 tity of phosphoric acid. The ammonia in air- 

 dried Virginia tobacco was found in five 

 samples analyzed under supervision of Prof. 

 Mallett, University of Virginia, to average a 

 little more than 4 per cent. (4.31), or in 1,000 

 pound about 43 pounds of ammonia, which is 

 an evidence that tobacco requires a liberal 

 amount of ammonia. Tobacco, as we all 

 know, requires rich land, and the farmers 

 cannot raise stable manure enough to supply 

 its wants, and they will do well to make com- 

 posts for this crop and thus eke out their 

 stable manure as much as possible. By mak- 

 ing large quantities of stable and farm -pen 

 manure and composting this with rich earth 

 and all their tobacco stalks and stems and 



