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 asandy 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 manuré. 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 
