68 SWEET POTATO CULTURE. 



out, in about ten days after setting out the plants, the 

 little balk that was left in throwing up the list, and try 

 to get the earth as high as you can on the list, so as to 

 smother out any grass that might start to grow on the 

 list where the potato plant is. Now, before this earth 

 that I have thrown up by this plowing commences to put 

 up grass, I run a cotton scraper, which is attached to 

 Watts' A and B plow, as close as I can to the potato 

 plants, throwing earth to them ; try to not let it cut 

 more than half an inch deep. A good plowman can run 

 the point of the scraper within less than an inch of the 

 potatoes. If the vines have run any, of course I have to 

 send a man ahead to throw the vines into every alternate 

 balk, and the scraper has to first run all through the 

 patch on one side of the list and then have the vines 

 thrown back to that side that has been worked and run 

 on the other side. The last working with the plow is to 

 throw all this earth the scraper pulled away from the 

 list back to it, moving the vines out of the way just as 

 was done for the scraper, and throwing on one side of the 

 list all through the patch, and then come back and plow 

 the other side in the same way, trying to make this fresh 

 earth meet in the middle of the list. Let your hands 

 come on behind and see that no vines are covered up, as 

 nothing lessens the size of the potatoes in the ridge or 

 hill more than to have the vines covered with soil." 



The foregoing instructions on culture, by Mr. Tinsley, 

 are so well adapted to a large portion of the potato re- 

 gions, and are so plain and practical, that had we given 

 nothing further on this subject cultivators with similar 

 soils and in similar sections could hardly err in their 

 management. 



