54 How THE FARM PAYS. 



also manure at the rate of five loads per acre in the farrows. I plant 

 the largest potatoes cut lengthwise in two parts, dropped fifteen inches 

 apart in the rows, and cover with the plow about four inches, and 

 before the sprouts come through the ground harrow with the 

 chain harrow or with a light sloping tooth harrow, the object 

 being to break the crust to a depth of an inch or two and to destroy 

 the weeds in the embryo state. The after cultivation is done with the 

 hoe and cultivator. In gathering, plow out with the double furrow 

 plow, pick up, put in pits or the cellar. The largest of the potatoes 

 are marketed if the price is good. If it is not, they are fed to the 

 stock with the small ones. 



Q. At what price do you consider they should be sold rather than 

 fed to the stock? 



A. Forty cents per bushel If less than that, it would pay better 

 to feed them to cattle or hogs. In fact, it has always been my practice 

 to feed everything raised on the farm, unless the market price was 

 such as would justify disposing of it at a fair profit. 



Q. Have you ever had any trouble, in feeding potatoes to cows, from 

 the danger of their choking, and if so how do you guard against that 

 danger ? I remember when a boy of many a good cow being choked 

 by potatoes. 



A. To prevent any possibility of choking I run the potatoes through 

 my "pulper" or root cutter, but cattle occasionally get choked with 

 apples and potatoes which they pickup out-doors. In such cases there 

 is no other remedy but the probang a flexible instrument with a 



corkscrew in the lower end, to bring up the potato or apple, if it will 

 come if not, it must be shoved down into the stomach. A method 

 which has been used when the obstacle cannot be removed by the 

 probang, is to crush the root in the throat by a sharp blow of a 

 mallet, a block of wood being held on the other side. This has 

 saved animals which would have been lost without it. (The probang, 

 shown in the illustration, consists of a flexible tube, which is pushed 

 down the throat until it meets the obstacle, when, if this cannot be 



