1877.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
95 
forward slowly—checking or stopping it by the 
halter—or if led by a rope about the horns, this 
should be looped about its nose, so as to give bet¬ 
ter control. Then with a light switch in the right 
hand, still held over the shoulder, and the leading 
rope in the left, the animal maybe started upon her 
journey. She must be let have her own way for a 
while, that is, she may stop, or go ahead, walk or 
run gently, and so guided, as to keep on the way 
all the time. After a while she may be touched a 
Tittle with the switch, if she stops, or stops too 
long, and be pulled in, if she runs too much, but 
even with an unbroken wild thing, like the one 
mentioned above, there need be no serious diffi¬ 
culty in getting her along, if she be properly treated. 
Talks on Farm Crops—No. 1. 
By the Author of “ Walks and Talks on the Farm'' 
“Harris on the Ho," etc. 
“Where are you going to plant potatoes this 
year,” asked Charley,, who is beginning to take 
quite an interest in the management of the farm. 
“ I had thought of planting about 4 acres on No. 
1, wher.i we had mangels last year; and 6 acres on 
No. 5, vffiere we are going to plant corn.” 
No. 1 is in prime condition. It was manured last 
spring for mangels, and the hoeing and frequent 
cultiva'ion between the rows, left it tolerably clean, 
and on mellow as a garden. It is good, strong 
land, and after the mangels were gathered last 
autumn, we plowed it with a three-horse plow, and 
I never saw land turn up better. The land is on a 
gentle slope, facing the south, and it would seem 
to be just the place to put in a crop of potatoes. 
But I have been recently studying the results of 
Mr. Lawes’ experiments on beets, and have come 
to the conclusion that unless we can use some arti¬ 
ficial manure for the potatoes, we can not expect a 
very large crop. The beets do not leave much ma¬ 
nure where the potatoes can get hold of it. Instead 
of planting potatoee, it would be better to sow bar¬ 
ley and seed down with clover. We might reasona¬ 
bly expect a good crop of barley, and a great crop of 
clover afterwards. And then, after the- clover, 
especially if pastured, we might plant potatoes, 
with a fair prospect of getting a good crop. 
“ Well,” said Charley, “ No. 5 is a clover sod.” 
True, but unfortunately the land has not been 
manured for a dozen years—and I question if it has 
ever been manured since it was first cleared of the 
original forest, half a century ago. But I should 
not care much for that, provided the land had been 
thoroughly worked, so as to develop the latent 
plant-food in the soil. Had such been the case, 
we should have had a large crop of clover, and the 
roots of the clover, together with the droppings of 
the sheep, would have furnished a liberal supply of 
plant-food for the potatoes, and we might have a 
reasonable hope of getting a good crop. 
One thing is certain, we can not get a great 
growth of potatoes, unless we have a rich sur¬ 
face soil. We can often get a big crop of clover 
when the surface soil is comparatively poor, pro¬ 
vided the lower soil is rich from previous manur¬ 
ing, or from thorough cultivation. But this is 
not the case with potatoes. The surface soil must 
be rich in available plant-food. A clover sod 
turned under is a good foundation to work upon. 
“ Yes,” said the Deacon, “ a sod of any kind is 
good. It keeps the ground loose and moist, and 
the potatoes like to bury themselves in it. It is a 
real pleasure to strike a hook into a hill, and pull 
up a dozen smooth, good-sized potatoes out of the 
decayed or decaying sod.” 
The Deacon is right. But in order to secure such 
a pleasure, we must look well to all the conditions. 
We want first—land that is free from stagnant wa¬ 
ter. If the land needs draining, it is vain to expect 
a good crop. Second.—We want a fine, free, mel¬ 
low soil. In saying this, I do not mean any special 
description of land. Good crops of potatoes can 
be grown on a great variety of soils, ranging from 
a black muck to a heavy clay loam, or a blowing 
sand. But in order to raise good crops of potatoes 
on clayey land, it is necessary to get it into a fine, 
mellow condition. Third.—We must plant early. 
And what is of still greater importance, we must 
keep the crop clean by thorough cultivation be¬ 
tween the rows, and the occasional use of the hoe 
in drawing the soil around the growing plants, 
killing the weeds at the same time 
Mauure for potatoes should be rich and well rot¬ 
ted. Horse or sheep manure that has been used as 
bedding for well-fed pigs, is excellent. If the ma¬ 
nure is not rich—in other words, if the animals 
have not been well fed—you can make up the de¬ 
ficiency, by putting a tablespoonful of nitrate of 
soda to each hill of potatoes. This will go far to¬ 
ward making poor manure into rich manure, and 
instead of getting 100 bushels of potatoes per acre, 
you may expect 200 bushels. 
“ But suppose you do not use any manure,” said 
the Deacon, “ would nitrate of soda then do 
good?”—I think it would. For you must recol¬ 
lect that whether we draw manure on to the land 
or not, we never plant potatoes without manure of 
some kind.—“ It is not one year in ten,” said the 
Deacon, “that I manure my potatoes.”—“You 
mean,” said I, “ that you do not draw out any ma¬ 
nure from the barn-yard for your potatoes. But 
pasture your land, and the droppings of the aui- 
mals furnish manure; and you turn under a sod, 
which rots and furnishes manure, and the slow 
decomposition of the soil itself furnishes manure. 
Now in this case, as in the other, the manure is 
generally poor in quality. It is not rich enough, 
and as I said before, nitrate of soda, or any sub¬ 
stance furnishing available nitrogen, will go far 
towards making it rich. And all we want is rich 
manure. I have a little doubt that if we drew out 
ten loads of common barn-yard manure to the acre 
on No. 5, and spread it on the sod and plowed it 
under carefully. Then rolled and harrowed 
thoroughly until we had three or four inches of 
mellow soil on top of the sod. Then mark it off in 
rows three feet apart each way. Then scatter a 
tablespoonful of pulverized and sifted nitrate of 
soda on the soil where the potatoes are to be plant¬ 
ed—covering, say a square foot of soil. Then plant 
the potatoes, and cover with a hoe. Then, as 
soon as the potatoes begin to crack the soil, go over 
the field with alight harrow ; or if this is not done, 
go through the rows with a cultivator as soon as 
the rows can be seen. Cultivate both ways, and 
go as near the plants as possible. Then in another 
week, go through them again, and follow with a 
hoe, and continue to cultivate as long as it can be 
done without disturbing the tubers. With some 
such treatment as this, I think we might reasonably 
expect a good growth of potatoes on No. 5. And 
even if it is plowed up without manure, and is then 
top-dressed with nitrate of soda, as in the other 
case, I should expect a good growth. The decaying - 
sod will furnish a certain amount of poor manure, 
and the nitrate of soda will help to make it rich. 
There may be some soils so poor that it would be 
necessary to apply potash and phosphoric acid. 
But I do not think it is necessary on my farm—or 
on any other where you have a good sod to turn 
under on light land. 
“ Why do you say on ‘ light land ’ any more than 
on heavy land,” asked Charley.—“ Because,” said 
the Deacon, “the sod on the heavy land will not 
rot 60 on enough to do the potatoes much good; 
while on sandy land, if not plowed too deep, and 
the season is warm and moist, and the field is well 
cultivated, the sod will rot rapidly.” 
“ That is it exactly,” said I, “ and this decom¬ 
posing sod will furnish the potatoes with all the 
elements of plant-food, potash and phosphoric 
acid included, but as a rule it will not furnish ni¬ 
trogen enough for a maximum crop of potatoes, 
and hence it is well to use some manure that will 
furnish it at the cheapest rate, and in the most 
available condition.” 
“You will not persuade many farmers,” said the 
Deacon, “to adopt such a system.”—“ So much 
the better for those who do take pains to raise good 
crops,” said I, though I am ashamed of the remark. 
The Colorado beetle will compel us to manure 
better, and thus secure a greater growth of vines. 
We have to use just as much Paris green, and 
spend just as much labor in applying it, on an acre 
of potatoes yielding 75 bushels per acre, as on an 
acre yielding 150 to 200 bushels per acre, and it is 
more work to cultivate and keep the poor crop 
clean, than the good crop, and almost as much la¬ 
bor to dig and gather an acre of small potatoes, as 
an acre of large ones, and not half so pleasant. 
Last year I planted 13 acres of potatoes of differ¬ 
ent varieties, including Early Rose, Early Vermont, 
Snowflake, Brownell’s Beauty, Compton’s Surprise, 
Genesee King, Jones No. 4, and Thorburn’s Late 
Rose. And the Deacon in the adjoining field plant¬ 
ed Peaehblow, Peerless, and Late Rose. He had a 
fair crop of Late Rose, but the Peaehblow and 
Peerless were hardly worth digging. 
In my field the Late Rose gave the largest yield, 
but the Early Vermont, on the whole, was the most 
satisfactory crop. The potatoes were more uniform 
in size. We had three acres, yielding 126 bushels 
per acre. The Late Rose had not come to maturi¬ 
ty, when the drouth and the second crop of bugs 
struck them, and consequently we had a great 
many small potatoes. Snowflake did tolerably well, 
but not as well as the Vermonts. But it is not 
worth while talking about the varieties that did 
well last year. It was an exceptionally bad season. 
As a rule, the only good potatoes we had were the 
earliest varieties—and this simply because they had 
nearly got their growth, before they were seriously 
injured by the drouth and the bugs. The Early 
Vermont, planted side by side with the Early Rose 
on the same day, came up earlier, and made a more 
vigorous growth. The plants were stronger, larger, 
and more robust. I do not attribute this wholly to 
the variety. The Early Rose has been grown on 
this farm for several years, without a change of seed. 
The Vermonts are comparatively new. Had we got 
Early Rose from a distance, instead of planting 
our home-grown seed, the plants might have been 
as vigorous as those of the Early Vermont. 
“It is not clear to my mind,” said the Doctor, 
“that a mere change of seed is so important. I 
know that the New Jersey potato- growers often 
send here for their seed, and we sometimes send to 
New Jersey for our seed; but I have never yet seen 
any positive evidence that anything is gained by it. 
And then,” continued the Doctor, “ one farmer 
thinks it very important to plant large potatoes, 
and another thinks small ones just as good—and 
the results of careful experiments are quoted to 
sustain both opinions.” 
“The thing is certain,” said the Deacon, “we 
shall have to plant small potatoes this year. The 
spring of 1875 potatoes were scarce and high, and a 
greet many small potatoes were planted—some not 
larger than marbles—and yet we never had such a 
great potato crop. The next spring potatoes were 
not worth marketing, and we planted the best 
and largest—and never had a worse crop. And so it 
is evident that the character of the season has more 
to do with the result, than the size of the seed.” 
The best crop of potatoes I ever raised on thiB 
farm happened to be from small seed. But it was 
a bit of prime light land, in high condition. The 
root of the plant penetrated into the fine, mellow 
soil, and needed little nutriment from the seed. 
Shall we plant in rows or in hills ; shall we plant 
small seed or large; shall we cut the potatoes or 
plant whole ; shall we cut the sets from the top or 
bottom, or middle of the potato; shall we cut the 
potatoes a few days before planting, and sprinkle 
lime pn them; shall we plant one or two sets in a 
hill; shall we plant deep or shallow ; shall we earth 
up, or shall we cultivate on the flat ? 
To all these, and a dozen other questions which 
are frequently asked, I answer : “ Do as you have 
done, or change if you feel like it; but whatever 
else you do, or leave undone, make the land dry, 
rich, mellow, and clean. If you cannot do it this 
year, make up your mind to do it next year, and 
begin to prepare for it now. Farmers must look 
ahead. We must keep our land rich enough to grow 
a fair crop in an unfavorable season. We shall 
