MISCELLANEOUS VIEWS ON MANAGEMENT. 73 



Select a light and not too rich soil for your patch. We 

 plant three and a half feet apart and use good, well- 

 rotted stable manure in the ridges." 



The Sweet Potato as Food eor Stock.— A writer 

 from Monteith, North Carolina, says : "Many farmers 

 fail to properly value the sweet potato as a food crop. 

 It makes fine feed for all kinds of stock. Hogs improve 

 rapidly upon them, and I have found nothing to excel 

 them as a food for producing milk and butter. The 

 yield per acre is so abundant, it seems a little strange that 

 more attention is not gh en to their culture. An average 

 crop, for my section of the State, is about three hundred 

 and fifty bushels. Farmers who give good attention to 

 this crop will greatly reduce their expenses in the way of 

 food." 



Proper Time for Harvesting.— This is very impor- 

 tant. J. V. Dansby, of Pensacola, Florida, says : " Pota- 

 toes should be harvested as soon as they are ripe. At 

 that time the leaves assume a yellow hue, and the roots, 

 after being cut and exposed to the sun and air, appear 

 white ; should there be upon the cut surface a green 

 tinge the potato is not ripe. Do not wait for a frost be- 

 fore beginning to gather." Mr, D. also gives valuable 

 instructions as to keeping large quantities. He has them 

 to come out " bright and sound" late in the spring. 



Cuttings vs. Sets or Plants. — A Floyd County, 

 Georgia, correspondent of the "Southern Cultivator," 

 says : " We begin to set out plants in May, and continue 

 until July, when we substitute cuttings from the vines. 

 These we set through July, sometimes as late as the 10th 

 of August, as we intend these to make our seed potatoes, 

 though we often get many fine eating potatoes from 

 these cuttings. In 1882 we set out a patch of little less 

 than an acre of these cuttings on the 18th of July. 

 They were plowed and hoed once each, and harvested 



