G. 1). howe’s potato manual. 
17 
While we read recently the adverse opinion of an extensive grower 
on this method as tried by him, we believe there is real merit in it 
and that if it can be adopted in some practical way so that the horse 
and usual machidery can be used, that it will be a decided advance 
in the cultivation of the crop for profit. 
We think the system certainly deserves a wide and thorough test 
by practical growers. Let us hear what the result is in the fall. 
Plow out a generous furrow in the field and strew the fertilizer, and 
then with whatever tool you have mix it thoroughly with the soil, use 
a subsoil plow if you can’t find anything else, letting it into the bot- 
tom of the furrow but an inch or two, drop the potatoes and cover 
with any tool y o 1 1 have that will do the job ; in my vicinity people 
use tobacco ridgers. While covering 1 should want to try a few 
rows with the seed covered only two or three inches instead of 
six as Mr. Carman proposes. It seems as if they would come up 
quicker and the cultivating would throw the soil into the furrow and 
cover up the small weeds, thus saving hoeing and still leave the 
field in level cultivation. Thus perhaps this new and interesting 
system of planting is sufficiently described to mention some of the 
common methods. Some farmers mark their ground both ways three 
or more feet apart and plant at the corners, thus being able to cul- 
tivate both- ways saving much hand hoeing. This makes consider- 
able more ground to go over in sprinkling poison and gathering the 
crop. We think however that since the advent of the Colorado bee- 
tle that growers have taken to planting thicker, which necessitates 
richer soil to secure good marketable potatoes. The systems of 
planting in hills and drills each have their advocates and are too well 
known to need comment here. Those who have planted in drills 
may have experienced a difficulty in dropping the seed bv its bound- 
ding around in the furrow, thus making very crooked rows to bother 
in cultivating and leaving the hills very irregularly spaced. We 
saw last summer at the excellent farm of Geo. B. McClellan, of 
Whately, Mass., a neat and very simple device of his own for obvi- 
ating this very difficulty. His was simply a square spout made of 
common narrow boards, leaving a hole in the center 2 1-2 or 3 inches 
square. This spout was about 33 inches high, had a handle project- 
ing at right angles to one of its sides about six inches from the top, 
and a tail piece of strap iron nailed to the bottom pointing in the 
same direction as the handle and about two feet long, bent up at the 
end to be just 18 inches loug from the center of the spout, the dis- 
All Special Ofl’ers and Premiums on Potatoes are at an end 
after March 20, when orders can be received only at catalogue rates. 
3 
