No. 4.] MARKET GARDENING, 81 



bottom. The boxes would be filled with fertilizer, so that 

 this would gradually trickle out in advance of the hoes. 

 This cultivation would be kept up as long as we could pos- 

 sibly get through the row. One excellent thing about pota- 

 toes of the Carman No. 3 or Rural New Yorker No. 2 type 

 is the fact that they grow upright. The vines do not fall 

 and sprawl on the ground until they have made a large 

 growth, so that it is possible to work up close to the plants 

 until late in the season. 



If I were asked to grow a large crop of potatoes without a 

 year's preparation in cow-peas or some other similar crop, I 

 would not attempt to do it, at least on my farm. One of the 

 best crops we have ever grown on a large scale seemed to 

 upset most of the known theories of potato culture. The 

 ground was thoroughly worked and fair dressings of fertilizer 

 worked into it. Potatoes were planted in shallow drills 

 eighteen inches apart each way and lightly covered with soil. 

 The whole patch was then covered with a coating of stal)le 

 manure about three inches thick. No cultivating was done 

 during the season and but a little hand weeding; was neces- 

 sary. The plants grew up through the mulch and made a 

 very heavy growth. When they were dug, the ground was 

 perfectly alive with potatoes. It happened to be a dry sea- 

 son, and the mulch seemed to have good efiect. I shall try 

 this again next spring on about one-quarter of an acre of 

 early potatoes, using cow-pea vines and marsh hay for mulch- 

 ing. We are not prepared to recommend this method, al- 

 though, as I have said, it has given us perhaps the largest 

 yield on a small scale. As I said, we follow every possil)le 

 crop with crimson clover, generally mixing turnip seed with 

 the clover after such crops as late peas or sweet corn. The 

 turnip with us is not a particularly profitable crop. It pro- 

 vides excellent food for our stock, however, and the small 

 ones left with the crimson clover supply a good deal of 

 humus and also a terrible smell in the spring. I have found 

 that some of our neighbors have a greater respect for our 

 crimson clover if the frozen turnips let out large doses of 

 their peculiar odor when the time comes for ploughing under. 

 There are still many of our gardeners left who depend upon 

 their noses for their chemical analysis of manure or fertilizer, 



