Top Dressing on Grass-Potatoes# 
61 
TOP DRESSING ON GRASS. 
The Dressings detailed below were applied to 8 plots 
1st May, the grass cut 1st July, hay weighed 19th July 
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The above experiments were made by Prof. Johnston. 
Several of the applications here enumerated, will not 
be resorted to, probably in this country; but the re¬ 
sults of gypsum, charcoal , and salt , commend them¬ 
selves to the consideration of every thinking farmer. 
We hope to be able at the and of this season to give 
the results of similar trials from our own countrymen 
on this interesting subject. 
Potatoes, by planting early, have time to grow 
and shade the ground before the extreme heat comes 
on to check them; and this one circumstance is often¬ 
times the cause of securing the crop. The land is 
prepared by an autumnal ploughing, and sometimes 
two, ( v r hen requisite ; so that when the furrow came 
to be turned on to the sets, it mouldered over them 
like ashes, the dung having been carried on to the 
land during the frosts of winter, and spread when the 
season would admit. The business of plan ting com¬ 
menced by throwing out a furrow, in which the sets 
were placed about fourteen or fifteen inches distant, 
then came boys with rakes, pulling in upon them the 
dung from the land designed for the two next, furrows, 
when the planters again followed, and then the raker. 
Thus the land was planted in every alternate furrow, 
in which only the dung was placed. After the field 
was planted, it was well harrowed, and very care¬ 
fully spread with a thick coat of lime that had been 
slaked on the ground by being covered, a basketful in 
a heap, by throwing a little earth on it, which effect¬ 
ed the business in a surprisingly short space of time, 
and in the most complete manner; and a single fiat- 
hoeing of the weeds, completed the labor until the 
time of taking up, unless, perhaps, the pulling by 
hand a few single weeds, that might have escaped 
the operation of the hoe. The crop was generally 
taken up by the plough, and always proved very 
superior to those that were planted by any other 
mode, especially in seasons of drought, when the 
common system of moulding up is attended by very 
uncommon injury to the crop. My potatoes were 
always of a very regular size, with no small and ill- 
formed roots or small tubers growing to the larger 
ones; those being occasioned’ by moulding up the 
crop while growing, which operation forcing on 
another start in vegetation, it expends itself in the 
formation of small and incipient tubers, to the very 
great deterioration of the crop and its delay in ripen¬ 
ing. I always selected my seed from the"finest po¬ 
tatoes that I could obtain at any price, cutting one 
eye only to a piece, and planting as soon as cut; and 
in this way I have raised more than 700 bushels per 
acre, with far less labor and expense than others have 
bestowed on crops of less than half that quantity, and 
of very inferior quality. A good coat of lime , spread 
on the land after planting the potatoes, operates sur¬ 
prisingly : first, as destroying the worms and grubs; 
second, by its antiseptic property, retarding the action 
of the dung, and preventing it from giving forth its 
whole powers during the early growth of the crop— 
preserving it until the time of ripening, when the 
most of its vigor is required ; and, third, in prevent¬ 
ing a surface-growth of weeds, which I am convinced 
that it does in a remarkable manner. And all this is 
effected by the water which percolates through the 
surface-soil after every rain. In every way its use is 
great, hut in none more than in the benefit which it 
yields to the following crop, which ought always to 
be oats, seeded with clover; my custom being, as 
soon as the potatoes are removed, to plough up the 
ground into wide ridges, called reaches, so to lie all 
winter, and on this surface, without another plough¬ 
ing, to harrow in the oats, four bushels of seed per 
acre, in February, if the season will admit. 
I find that some person declares that he has found 
the largest crops or potatoes to be raised from the 
stalk-end of the tuber. Now this is contrary to ail 
my experience, having always found the best and 
earliest crops to spring from the eye-end of the po- 
