264 TALKS ON ^rAxrRES. 



The only question is, whether the same quantity of the right 

 kind of manure is as likely to double the potato crop as to double 

 the wheat crop, when botli are raised on average land. 



" It is not an easy matter," said the Deacon, " to double the yield 

 of potatoes." 



" Neither is it," said I, " to double the yield of wheat, but both 

 can be done, provided you start low enough. If your land is clean, 

 and well worked, and dry, and only produces ten Imshels of wheat 

 per acre, there is no ditBculty in makin;:: it produce twenty bushels; 

 and so of potatoes. If the land be dry and well cultivated, and, 

 barring the bugs, produces without manure 75 bushels per acre, 

 there ought to lie no dilliculty in making it produce 150 bushels. 



" But if your land produces, without manure, 150 bushels, it is 

 not always easy to make it produce 300 bushels. Fortunately, or 

 unfortunately, our land is, in most cases, poor enough to start 

 ■with, and we ought to be able to use manure on potatoes to great 

 advantage." 



'• But will not the manure," asked the Deacon," injure the quality 

 of the potatoes?" 



I think not. So far a^ my experiments and experience go, the 

 judicious use of good manure, on dry land, favors tiie perfect ma- 

 turity of the tubers and the formation of starch. I never manured 

 potatoes so highly as I did last year (1877). and never had potatoes 

 of such high quality. They cook white, dry, and mealy. We 

 made furrows two and a half feet apart, and spread ricli, well-rotted 

 manure in the furrows, and planted the potatoes on top of the ma- 

 nure, and covered them with a plow. In our climate, I am inclined 

 to think, it would be l)etter to apply the manure to the land for 

 potatoes the autumn previous. If sod land, spread the manure on 

 the surface, and let it lie exposed all winter. If stubble land, 

 plow it in the fall, and then spread tlie manure in the fall or win- 

 ter, and plow it under in the^ spring. 



