22 



Potato Growing. 



[APRIL, 



the following may be taken as best fulfilling all the conditions 

 above stated : — 



Earlies. — Ringleader, Harbinger, Recorder, Sir John 

 Llewellyn. 



Second Earlies. — British Queen, Conquest, Royal Kidney. 

 Late or Maincrop Varieties, — Up-to-Date, Charles Fidler, 

 Evergood. 



Doubtless there are many other excellent kinds, especially of 

 the Up-to-Date type, but the above are more or less typical of 

 the different classes. 



Manuring of Potatoes. 



Probably no crop that a farmer grows receives more manure 

 than the potato crop. Although, in most cases, the plant 

 responds readily to liberal manuring, it is doubtful if it be a 

 greedier feeder than other ''fallow" crops. It should be borne 

 in mind that the largest possible crop is not always the most 

 profitable, and that an excess of manurial ingredients over the 

 requirements of the crop may lead to considerable waste. It 

 may be argued that any such excess will benefit future crops, 

 but the farmer wants the highest possible return on the first 

 crop — " residual value " being generally a more or less doubtful 

 asset. 



In manuring potatoes a certain amount of dung is always 

 beneficial. It may be applied at different periods of the year, but 

 most experiments show that spring applications give the best 

 results. A dressing of 20 tons of dung per acre is not un- 

 common, and sometimes a liberal quantity of artificials is 

 applied in addition. With such treatment big crops may often 

 be obtained, but it frequently happens that the foliage is 

 encouraged at the expense of the tubers, and actually heavier 

 and, of course, much more profitable, crops may be grov/n by 

 using half the above quantity of dung. If the land be in very 

 poor condition, 20 tons of dung may prove more profitable 

 than 10, but in the majority of cases quantities like the former 

 are too large to be applied with profit. 



A more common system, however, of manuring potatoes is 

 that of applying a moderate dressing of dung — say about 10 

 tons per acre— and supplementing with artificials. In the use 



