October 28, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



5ii 



first-class certificate. The flower is large, well-balanced, 

 and is white, suffused with rose. The flower produced 

 this year is far superior to that of last year. 



C. Polletianum. — I noted this last year as a beautiful hy- 

 brid which Messrs. Sander & Co. had raised from C. calo- 

 phyllum and C. cenanthum superbum. The last-named is 

 one of the choicest of hybrid Cypripediums, but its off- 

 spring is generally voted to be a better plant. The flower 

 is very large, with the form of C. Laurencianum, the dorsal 

 sepal deep purplish crimson, margined with white and 

 spotted with chestnut. The petals and lip are even darker 

 in color than the dorsal sepal, while the whole flower 

 shines as if varnished. 



W. Watson. 



Kew. 



Bermuda Potatoes. 



THE Bermuda potatoes are all grown in the winter months. 

 The Early Rose and Prolific are used for early planting, 

 and any kind of red Potatoes for the later planting. Of the red 

 kind more Garnets than others are planted. 



Red has become by unwritten law the Bermuda trade- 

 mark, and dealers in New York City do not care to touch a 

 late Bermuda Potato without it be red. Their customers, the 

 grocerymen, say the public do not believe a potato is from 

 Bermuda unless it is red — " that the red soil colors it ! " 



Many farmers are now, October 15th, planting Early Rose, 

 which will be harvested in from eighty to ninety days after the 

 planting, or about New Year's. When these fields are har- 

 vested, the farmer immediately puts in late Onions, and gets 

 two crops in one season. 



From now on up to February 15th the farmer will plant po- 

 tatoes as seems best or convenient, and the harvesting from 

 these successive plantings is kept up to about June 1st. No 

 doubt a northern farmer would be delighted if he could have 

 four months of the year for planting and a corresponding four 

 or five months for harvesting. No one plants after February 

 15th, as plantings after that date run to enormous tops — some- 

 times six feet long — but not a tuber will set. 



Our potatoes for planting all come from the north, as pota- 

 toes grown in Bermuda, and with great care kept over the 

 summer, are almost worthless for planting. Arrangementsare 

 made with farmers in Maine, the Adirondack region.Nova Scotia 

 and New Brunswick to grow our red potatoes for planting. 

 Our Early Rose come from New York. 



We have great trouble to make these seed potatoes sprout, 

 as potatoes which have gone to sleep in a northern climate, 

 not contemplating an awakening until April or May following, 

 do not readily arouse ; they are more inclined to rot than 

 sprout, and it will not answer to put them into the ground un- 

 til they have sprouted. Probably the most successful way to 

 sprout them is to spread them upon a dry floor for a few days 

 until they are thoroughly dried off from the steamship sweat. 

 Those inclined to rot should be picked out, and the others put 

 back into barrels and kept in a dry warm place. As soon as 

 the eyes begin to show signs of starting the potatoes are cut 

 into pieces with two or three eyes and directly planted in the 

 ground. 



The method of planting, after the ground is thoroughly pre- 

 pared with manure or an artificial fertilizer, is as follows : A gar- 

 den line is stretched across the field, and a man, following this 

 line, takes each piece of potato and pushes it into the ground 

 some three or four inches. These rows are from eighteen to 

 twenty inches apart, and the potatoes from four to six inches 

 in the row. This is a slow, laborious process, but it is much 

 the best way, as the growth of the Potato here is somewhat 

 different than in the north. There each Potato-plant sends 

 out roots in different directions four or five inches long, and 

 on the end of these rootlets the potato is formed, frequently 

 making a large hill full of potatoes. Here the potato "snugs 

 up" close to the plant, only forming from one to three good 

 marketable potatoes to each stalk. By no known method can 

 the potato be induced to stray away from the stalk, so we 

 strive to have as many stalks or plants to the acre as is pos- 

 sible. After the rows can be seen through the field, men are 

 put in with spading forks, spading carefully between each row, 

 the rows being so close together that a horse cannot be used. 

 A week or ten days afterward the potatoes are hilled up (or, 

 as we say, moulded) by hoe, and nothing more is done with 

 them until harvesting, as the potatoes soon cover in the ground 

 and no weeds can grow. 



We do not speak of sO many bushels raised to the acre, but 

 so many barrels raised from a barrel of seed. The amount 



raised is usually from three to six barrels from one barrel 

 planted, though eight and ten are not infrequent. The yield 

 per acre is probably from one hundred to two hundred bushels. 

 If we did not get large prices there would be no profit in this 

 crop. 



I give below a statement of account with 115 rods of land 

 (120 rods would be three-quarters of an acre) which I planted 

 in the winter of 1889-90. The planting was at different times, 

 from December 1st to January 5th, and I harvested them from 

 March 27th to April 24th. These were Garnet's late potatoes, 

 and the season was well adapted for potatoes. I bought all 

 the manure and seed and did not do any work myself, and, of 

 course, the workmen did not work hard enough to hurt them- 

 selves. I dare say if they had been working on their own crop 

 they would have performed the labor at half the cost. A good 

 Yankee farmer, leading his own workmen, would have realized 

 a large profit from these 115 rods, but in this land of shiftless 

 ways, with a seeming effort to do all things in the slowest way 

 it is possible to find, I made only a fair profit. 



An account with 115 rods of land for potatoes in Bermuda 

 Island : 



1890. SALES. 



March 27th. — 20 barrels potatoes $6.72 $134.40 



April 10th. — 16 " " 6.00 96.00 



April 24th.— 17 " " 5.28 89.76 



May 6th. — 5 " " second size, 3.00 15.00 



$335- 16 



COST. 



20 loads seaweed (36c.) $ 7 . 20 



63 loads (1 horse) manure ($1.20) 75 60 



38 bushels seed (96c.) 



58 empty barrels 



Labor to grow and harvest. 



I82 . 80 

 36.48 

 11.76 

 84.98 



$216.02 



Net profit on 115 rods $119.14 



We have our trials from disease in the shape of a fungus- 

 growth, which only attacks the plant-leaves when the potatoes 

 are about half-grown and stops their growth. The disease 

 may start in on one side of the field to-day and in two or three 

 days' time it sweeps over the field, and the tops look as though 

 a killing frost had prevailed. Nothing has yet been found to 

 arrest this disease, so we meekly succumb, hoping for a 

 north-east dry wind to come, which usually delays, but does 

 not wholly stop its progress. We have another pest in the 

 shape of the broken-tailed snail, which eats off the stalk at the 

 base when tender ; after the stalk becomes harder no harm is 

 done. The Colorado potato-bug is not known here. 



We shipped to American ports in the winter of 1890-1891 

 80,000 bushels, and we paid into the United States Treasury, 

 in custom tax, the sum of $20,000, which the Bermudian feels 

 to be infamous. We are looking forward with fear and trem- 

 bling to the results of this winter crop. Under the McKinley 

 law we have to pay into the United States Treasury twenty- 

 five cents custom tax on every bushel we place in the New 

 York market before we can come in competition with the 

 United States farmer, and we fear this will so handicap us 

 that our balance-sheet will show a loss. 



Hamilton, Bermuda. Russell Hastings. 



Cultural Department. 



Adaptation to Locality. 



"VTOTHING more important, I think, was brought before the 

 -L^ American Pomological Society at Washington than Mr. 

 Garfield's remarks upon the adaptation of fruits to locality. 

 The necessity for this is comparatively but little appreciated, 

 and many men, even those of long experience as fruit-grow- 

 ers, but feebly realize the immense importance to the com- 

 mercial orchardist of a full understanding of this part of his 

 business. A great number of failures are due to lack of 

 knowledge on this point. In a recent issue of the Stockman 

 and Farmer, Mr. R. J. Black, of Bremen, Ohio, illustrated the 

 matter clearly in some remarks about the King of Tompkins 

 County Apple, the Tompkins King of the revised nomencla- 

 ture. Mr. Black says : " The excellence of this apple in Tomp- 

 kins County, New York — latitude nearly forty-three degrees — 

 is undoubted, but for planting in the central west it cannot be 

 recommended. In this section it is only a moderate bearer ; 

 the fruit is generally imperfect, and it does not keep." Ex- 

 actly this statement can be made of the Baldwin, as regards 

 limitation of usefulness when grown west and south of New 

 York. It then becomes a fall apple, does not hang well to the 



