90 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[March, 
Valuable Experiments with. Potatoes. 
Dr. Hexamer, of New Castle, N. T., furnishes 
us again (see last yol., p. 98) with an account of 
some very important experiments of his with 
potatoes, and also with the tally of his crops re- 
duced to hushels per acre for each sort. We 
should preface the specifications of these results 
by stating that Dr. H. is an accurate and scien- 
tific experimenter and observer, and a good 
farmer. His results have a scientific value. 
RESULTS OP EXPERIMENTS. 
1. Out of 70 hills of potatoes, peeled so that 
no eyes were visible, 35 grew. Some produced 
very large potatoes. The planted potatoes re- 
mained, mostly, hard and firm till digging time. 
2. Out of 80 hills, pieces cut without eyes, 13 
hills grew. All of these sprouted on the cut 
surfaces, none through skin. (One large potato, 
cut in two lengthwise, sprouted on the cut side 
near, but below the skin, and there was no 
sprout proceeding from a visible eye.) 
3. Out of 100 whole potatoes, 98 grew from 
the small end, and 2 at the side. With more 
than half the number of potatoes planted whole, 
only one eye grew, the rest remaining dormant. 
4. A potato does not always expend all 
germinating power in one year, 
5. Wet rot and dry rot are one and the same 
disease. Potatoes affected with the rot, will rot 
dry when they are kept dry, and the same will 
rot wet when they are kept in a moist place. 
YIELD OP POTATOES IN 1866. 
The following list is arranged in order of pro- 
ductiveness, and gives the number of years the 
seed has been planted on the farm, and the 
amount of assorted, marketable potatoes: 
Variety. 
Years Bu. per 
planted acre. 
Cuzco l3d year 
Monitor 1st year 
Pinkeye Rustycoat 3d j'ear 
White Peach Blow. 3d year 
Fluke 3d year 
Peach Blow 3d year 
Mercer 3d year 
Jjiulkley's Seedling. 3d year 
Garnet Chili 3d year 
Buckeye 3d year 
Early "Goodrich 2d year 
Prairie Seedling. . . 3d year 
Early Cottage |3d year 
Colebrook 1st year 
Blue Mercer J3d year 
Gleason '. . . 1st year 
Jackson White 1st year 
Dykeman J3d year 
Prince Albert 3d vear 
White Rock ! 3d year 
Rough and Ready.. ! 3d year 
Early Sovereign. . . '2d year 
Early June '3d year 
3G9 
262 
249 
235 
215 
200 
ISO 
188 
108 
150 
1-15 
125 
113 
109 
105 
95 
90 
85 
SO 
75 
02 
57 
53 
Remarks. 
No rot. 
Rotted badly. 
No rot. 
Rot. 
No rot. 
Much rot. 
Much rot. 
Much rot. 
Rot. 
Eaten by grabs. 
No rot. 
Rotted badly. 
No rot. 
Rot. 
Rotted. 
No rot,poor location. 
Rot. 
Little rot. 
Rotted badly. 
No rot. 
Rotted. 
No rot. 
jPoor location, no rot. 
Cow Stables— Not New but Good. 
Br Gilbert J. Green. 
Enclosed I send you a rough sketch of my 
idea of a cow stable. I would always tie cows, 
believing it to be the easiest and best plan. This 
is best done by having a strap budded around 
the horns, and alwa} 7 s left there ; upon this strap 
in front, is a ring two inches in diameter. In 
the stable is a rope or chain two feet long, or 
less, with a ring sliding upon an upright pole 
beside the manger, on the other end a snap hook. 
When the cow enters the stable, this hook is 
snapped into the ring upon the strap, and the 
cow is securely, as well as comfortably, fastened. 
I would arrange the front of the manger, (see 
figure,) with two diverging boards, having them 
to touch at the bottom, and widen to the full 
width of the stall above. These prevent the cow 
from throwing the hay out of her manger 
with her head, and getting it under her feet. 
The stall should be 46 inches wide between the 
partitions, and 50 inches long between the man- 
c=^ 
ger and the gutter, which should be 7 inches 
deep and two feet wide. The manger should be 
two feet in width and 17 inches high, in front of 
the cow. The partition should extend across 
the manger, and 
be five feet in 
length and four 
or more in hight. 
The floor (as well 
as the bottom of 
the gutter),should 
be made of as- 
phaltum or coal r 
tar, two inches 
higher in front 
than it is behind. 
Such a stable is 
clean ,durable and 
convenient, the 
cows have plenty of room, their heads are not 
closely confined, you scrape over no broken 
planks or rough stones in cleaning out the stalls, 
but a smooth, even floor, that absorbs no mois- 
ture, generates no foul odors, and is easy for the 
cow to stand or lie upon, even without litter. 
MANGER FOK COWS. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— No. 39. 
The winter so far has not been favorable for 
wheat. Severe winds and little snow, with 
sudden freezing and snowing. One morning the 
thermometer on my stoop marked 8° below zero, 
and the next day we had a thaw, followed by 
high winds, and then a hard frost. This, with 
bare ground, will severely try our winter wheat, 
especially where the land is not drained. 
The Doctor has bought a stack of nice clover 
hay at $9 a ton, delivered. He is not feeding 
his cows so much corn-pudding this winter. It 
costs too much, and clover ha} r and carrots are 
much cheaper. A little grain in addition, how- 
ever, is a great improvement. The Doctor rais- 
ed a splendid crop of carrots, and lectures me 
for not growing more on my farm. I tell him 
that as soon as I get my land clean and rich I 
propose to beat him in raising root crops. All 
my efforts at present are directed to this one ob- 
ject — to get my laud clean and rich. There is 
no profit in farming until this is accomplished. 
Fortunately in making land clean you do a good 
deal towards making it rich. And when it is 
once rich, this very process of keeping it rich 
will do a good deal towards keeping it clean. 
I told the Doctor that the manure from the 
clover would be worth as much as he paid for 
the hay. A practical farmer who heard the re- 
mark thought this an extravagant estimate. He 
draws a good deal of manure from the city, and 
says he has made up his mind to sell everything 
from the farm that brings a good price — straw, 
hay, grain, roots, and anything that can be turned 
into money. He thinks a fanner cannot afford to 
make manure by feeding stock. That the only 
way land can be profitably manured, from the 
farm itself, is by turning under green clover. 
Situated as he is, near the city, it may be 
cheaper to buy manure than to make it by feed- 
ing stock. But he cannot afford to sell clover 
hay for nine dollars a ton. The cutting, curing 
and stacking cost, say two dollars a ton, and 
weighing and delivering it to the purchaser at 
least a dollar more, so that he does not net over 
six dollars per ton. A farmer who wants ma- 
nure had certainly better plow in the clover than 
sell it at such a price. But I do not think he 
need do either. Hay is always worth somethi ng 
to feed out to cows and sheep. Some years it 
is worth more, some less, but, taking one year 
with another, it is worth at least the expeuse of 
cutting and curing, and drawing back the ma- 
nure. The real question to be considered in de- 
termining whether it is better to plow in the clo- 
ver, or to make it into hay and feed it out is : 
can you harvest the clover aud draw back the 
manure for what the hay is worth to feed out ? 
" I would really like to know how 3 T ou make 
it out that the manure from a ton of clover is 
worth $9.00 ? " » 
"We know how much nitrogen, phosphoric 
acid, potash, etc., the clover contains, and we 
know about how much is retained in the in- 
crease of the animal eating the clover, and con- 
sequently we know how much would be left in 
the manure. We know, furthermore, how much 
these ingredients cost when purchased in the 
form of Peruvian guano, or other artificial ma- 
nures ; and from these and other data, it is easy 
to determine the value of the manure made from 
any article used as food." 
" That may be all very well, but still I do not 
believe the manure from a ton of clover hay is 
worth $9.00. It cannot be. There is not bulk 
enough. I do not believe you would get, after it 
was fed out, over half a load of manure, and I 
can buy good stable manure for a dollar a load." 
" Well, suppose you can, and that it costs you 
another dollar to draw it ; I question if you get 
manure cheaper than you would from clover hay 
at nine dollars a ton. Ton do not draw much 
more than a ton of this fresh horse litter to a load." 
" Probably not, taking one load with another." 
" Very well. A ton of this fresh manure, 
then, costs you two dollars by the time it is de- 
posited in your barn yard, or in the field." 
" This is rather too high an estimate. I have 
not much for my man and team to do in winter, 
except to draw manure. But let that pass." 
" The question then is, what is the real value 
of this ton of fresh manure, calculated on the 
same estimate that we apply to the manure made 
from clover hay. Nitrogen, phosphoric acid 
aud potash are, confessedly the most valuable 
ingredients in any manure. A ton of ordinary 
barnyard manure contains : Nitrogen, 8 lbs. ; 
Phosphoric acid, 4 lbs.; Potash and Soda, 11 lbs." 
Fresh, solid horse droppings, without any ad- 
mixture of straw, would contain a little more 
nitrogen than the above estimate — say 10 3 | 4 lbs. 
—and would be proportionally more valuable. 
On the other hand, solid cow dung, unmixed 
with straw, contains, according to the best ana- 
lyses, less than 4?\i lbs. of nitrogen to the ton. 
Now a ton of good clover hay contains about 
50 lbs. of nitrogen. And if we assume that 3 
lbs. of this nitrogen is retained in the animal, or 
otherwise disposed of by the vital functions, we 
shall have 47 lbs. of nitrogen in the manure 
made from a ton of clover hay. The clover, 
too, is exceedingly rich in potash. 
To sum up the matter, that it may be under- 
stood at aglance, we put the figures side by side : 
Nitrogen 
Phosphoric acid. 
Potash and soda. 
A ton of ordinary 
manure contains 
8 lbs. 
4 lbs. 
11 lbs. 
Manure from a ton 
of clover hay 
contains 
47 lbs. 
12 lbs. 
40 lbs. 
In the manure made from a ton of clover hay 
we get nearly four times as much potash and 
soda, three times as much phosphoric acid, and 
nearly six times as much nitrogen. The latter 
is the ingredient of most value, and wo shall not 
be far wrong in concluding that the manure 
from a ton of clover hay is worth five limes as 
much as a ton of common manure. 
" This mode of reckoning is not satisfactory. 
