18 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



or earth sufficient to make convenient to apply. Less than one gill of this 

 mixture to each hill, has about trebled my crop of potatoes when applied.'-' 



Mr. S. 0. Cross, Sandy Hill, Washington county, N. Y., recommends 

 sawdust as an excellent manure for potatoes. He saj's: "Prepare the 

 ground as usual, drop the potatoes, and cover with sawdust from one-half 

 to a shovel full in a hill, cover them slightly with earth, after which follow 

 your old custom, and I will warrant sound potatoes in every hill so treated." 



Prof. Mapes thinks muck — salt or fresh — would be much better than 

 sawdust, and one of the reasons why it is good, he supposes, is because it 

 contains a large per centage of potash^ which in any form will increase the 

 crop of potatoes. Crops of four to five hundred bushels of potatoes have 

 been grown upon the Newark meadow, where the ground is a mass of salt 

 murk. He should doubt the value of sawdust as a manure, though it 

 would be beneficial in clayey soils, to render them more open, so as to 

 receive the benefit of the air. It is well known that potatoes will produce 

 a g-ood crop, if the seed is laid upon the surface of well-prepared ground, 

 and covered with old hay, straw, or any substance that excludes the light. 

 The roots penetrate' the soil, and the tubers form upon the surface. 



A sensible old Quaker farmer of Salem, N. J., sends us the following as 

 one of his experiments with potatoes: "Some years ago we hauled out 

 some manure in compost in a grass field. Subsequently we hauled it all 

 away but about two loads. This we suffered to rot until it became very 

 fine; then we spread it around as far as we could tlu'ow it with a shovel. 

 We planted with corn the next year, and the next with potatoes, without 

 manure. The field of potatoes was clear of disease except the small spot 

 on which we spread the fine compost manure nearly two years before, and 

 on that part the potatoes were larger, but we did not find one clear of the 

 disease." 



I He also addressed the following interesting letter, upon several other 

 subjects, to the American Institute Farmers' Club, 



" SOAVING CLOVER SEED. 



"A correspondent writing from the West a few weeks ago, recommended 

 growing clover seed on oat ground, as the most certain mode to get the' 

 land well set in clovei' — that the seed will nearly all grow, etc. 



" We have sown clover on our oat ground many times within the last 

 twenty years for green crops, to turn under for wheat. When the weather 

 has been dry we have rolled the ground after seeding. The seed sown has 

 germinated and grown well until the oats shaded the ground completely, 

 when the young clover died out, so that the stand has been much less at 

 harvest time on the oats than on the wheat field. May not this be fairly 

 attributed to the broader leaves, thicker straw, and more luxuriant growth 

 of the oats? This is an evidence that vegetation needs the direct rays of 

 the sun to sustain life. 



"tURXING under green crops for manure — SOME KINDS WORTHLESS. 



" We have plowed under crops of clover for crops of wheat at various 

 times, and always with good results; but have received more benefit from 

 the first crop turned under green, than from both crops turned under when 

 dry. I prefer the green crop of clover to any other dressing for wheat. 



