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perhaps another. In due season a good crop of large tu- 

 bers was well nigh sure to be forthcoming. But now-a-days 

 in this vicinity, results are very uncertain. With the ad- 

 vent of the Colorado beetle and numerous kinds of blight 

 and rot, we have found it safe not to count our potatoes, 

 before they are dug. And even then the crop is far from a 

 sure thing, since disease often appears after harvest. One 

 of the first requisites for successful potato culture is good, 

 strong, new land. By new land strictly speaking, is under- 

 stood land that has never before been under the plow ; viz. 

 newly cleared ground ; but niow land, that under crop rota- 

 tation, has been recently under sod is called *' neivy Such 

 soil is comparatively free from the various species of fun- 

 gous growth. Nor are the bugs as numerous. As to fer- 

 tilization, excellent crops of smooth, handsome tubers are 

 produced on such new land, by the use of a small quantity 

 of high grade fertilizer sprinkled in the hills. The various 

 commercial manures, such as high grade fertilizers, phos- 

 phates and dissolved bone certainly tend to the production 

 of smooth, clean potatoes, whereas the fresh, green manure 

 of our domestic animals, favors the growth of the scab and 

 fungous diseases. If manure be used for potatoes at all, 

 let it be old and well rotted, and apply it in the fall pre- 

 vious to time of planting. Of late years, the so called 

 trench system of growing potatoes has received consider- 

 able attention and deservedly so. This plan consists 

 essentially in opening deep furrows of eight or ten inches, 

 covering bottom of furrow with a couple of inches of fine 

 mellow soil, dropping the seed and covering three or four 

 inches deep. The depression in the furrow is filled in dur- 

 ing the successive hoeings of the crop. The advantages of 

 the practice may be briefly summed up as follows. The 

 roots of the vine are well down in the moist earth, where 

 they can stand the drought. The tubers are well covered 

 and out of the way of danger from sun scald. It is easy 

 work to hoe the crop, which merely consists in levelling the 

 ground about the plants, while by the old method of cul- 

 ture, hills have to be formed. 



