219 SPECIALTIES 



it is now out of print. So big a yield entails 

 too much labor for the average grower, but a 

 third of that number of bushels would yield a 

 handsome income. But, ordinarily, it does not 

 pay to raise potatoes in a small garden. 



Mr. C. E. Ford, who lived in Cherokee County, 

 northeastern Texas, tells of raising two such 

 incredible crops of potatoes annually from his 

 land, and his method seems simple as set out 

 by Finney Sprague of Chicago in a small book 

 which was published in 1905. 



Mr. Ford had a sandy soil with a clay sub-soil 

 three feet below the surface, which he says he 

 ridged up into dykes; then he used immense 

 quantities of cotton-seed for fertilizer as well as 

 liquid manure. One of the important features 

 was his rich fertilizing, and though it sounds ex- 

 pensive when compared with the ordinary 

 quantities of manure used, it is really cheap if 

 anything like such results can be had. Com- 

 mercial fertilizers suited to potato growing may 

 be used in place of cotton-seed, and the grower 

 claims that the method may be followed from 

 Canada to Texas successfully, securing at least 

 two crops of potatoes a season. 



According to his method, the seed used must 

 be of uniform size, running about 80 potatoes 

 to the bushel, and averaging about | of a pound 



