78 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Unsettled Questions in Potato Culture. 
Long as this useful esculent has been cultivat¬ 
ed, there are some points in its management not 
yet fully settled. As connected with the subject 
of the potato rot , it is worth while to observe, 
each year, whether varieties most liable to the 
disease, mature their seed balls. According to the 
writer’s limited observation, some of the most 
delicate sorts produce balls one year, and then 
fail to do so the next. Let this matter be noted 
and inquired into the coming year. 
Then, as to the use of manures. Many persons 
think that on new land, no manure whatever is 
needed ; that the crop' does better without it. 
Others hold that all soils require the addition of 
manure. Some say, old, well-rotted manure, 
others, fresh long-manure. Hog-manure, say 
some; others, barn-yard dung. Hen-manure is 
the best of all, cry out some people ,• not equal to 
guano, say others. You are all mistaken, shouts 
a new man, ashes or plaster, or ashes, plaster 
and lime mixed, is the ne plus ultra of manures. 
And the last man recommends meadow-muck 
mixed with ashes and plaster. Now, it takes a 
multitude of facts to establish a principle, and it 
is to be hoped that farmers and gardeners will 
keep on experimenting yearly, until they arrive at 
conclusions which cannot be shaken. 
Then, as to the time of planting. It is gener¬ 
ally maintained, now, that early planting is best, 
but there are facts and opinions on the other side. 
Let this point be still looked after. 
As to the size of potatoes for seed, and whether 
they should be cut or uncut, planters are not fully 
agreed. A few still hold that a thick paring con¬ 
taining an eye, is all that is necessary, but the 
number of such is annually diminishing. Many 
say that the smallest potatoes are as good for 
seed as the largest. A great majority, we be¬ 
lieve, prefer medium-sized potatoes. Let these 
several opinions be subjected annually to the test 
of experiment. 
Braining in March. 
BY A STATED CONTRIBUTOR. 
There is a time for everything, and, among the 
rest, for draining. The latter part of this month, 
before the Spring plowing begins, is a favorable 
time. The ground is free from much frost, and 
other labors are not yet pressing. Every rod of 
drain made will serve to help forward the plow¬ 
ing. sowing, and harvesting. 
The present is not the best time to determine 
where drains should be made : that we will sup¬ 
pose to have been done during the last season. 
They are wanted, of course, wherever the surface 
water remained late last Spring, hindering the 
plowing and planting. They are wanted where 
the water collected and remained a long time 
when you dug post-holes late in the season. They 
are wanted where the soil was cold and stiff, 
heavy in Spring and Fail, and hard as a brick-bat 
in Summer. They are wanted in yonder orchard, 
where the trees are mossy and stunted. They 
are wanted in yonder.pasture, where the ground 
“ gives ” under your feet, and where the grasses 
are coarse and sour. 
All this was known and felt last year, but now 
is the time for doing the work. We do not pro¬ 
pose at present to go into the details of drain¬ 
making—for the readers of our several late vol- 
umes this would be unnecessary—but a few 
words may not come amiss. Low, boggy ground 
may be much improved by cutting wide ditches 
through them, with sloping banks, and leaving 
them open. If the land is such as to admit of 
cultivation, the ditches may be filled with brush, 
laid with the butts down the channel, the whole 
pressed down with the foot, then covered with 
straw or sods, and finished off with two feet of 
soil. This is not, of course, the best drain, and 
the cheapest in the long run, but may do for a 
make-shift. Rails, (they are none the worse for 
being crooked), cedar poles, planks nailed to¬ 
gether, so as to leave an opening like the letter 
A, each will make a ditch for soft, swampy land, 
that will last for several years, and answer a good 
purpose. Brush drains well made and not 
meddled with, sometimes last a dozen or more 
years For ordinary farm land, however, stones 
carefully laid are much better, and drain-pipes are 
best of all. For a stone drain, the bottom should 
be solid and smooth, the stones laid firmly so as 
to keep in place, then covered with inverted sods 
to keep out the surface dirt. And yet, after all 
possible care is taken, mice will often burrow in 
them and clog up the throat. The drain-pipes 
and tiles are not open to this objection. The 
horse-shoe tiles, laid upon boards or planks at the 
bottom of the trench, and the round pipe or sole 
tiles laid upon a hard clay bottom and well 
matched, will seldom get clogged, and will last 
a life-time. The round or pipe-tiles are best 
generally, if carefully laid so that the ends will 
meet well together, and not be displaced by the 
earth when settling. Once firmly bedded, nothing 
but water can get into them, and they will last a 
century or more. 
As to the depth to which ditches should be 
sunk, experienced farmers are not yet agreed. 
Some maintain that two-and-a-half or three feet 
is all that is needed ; that this puts the pipe be¬ 
low injury from frost, below the plow-point, and 
as low as the roots of grasses and grains ordinar¬ 
ily penetrate. They hold that to dig deeper than 
this is very laborious and expensive, and does 
not compensate for the trifling advantage gained. 
Others, however, insist that four or five feet is 
the true depth, and that anything less is only 
scarifying the surface. We shall not now try to 
defend either opinion, but, while always advocat¬ 
ing thorough work, shall be very glad to know 
that even the first named depth is reached this 
Spring by many of our readers. The farther 
apart drains are made, the deeper should they be 
sunk. 
--J>-«-- 
Eow Deep to Brain. 
To tlic Editor of the American Agriculturist : 
How deep shall we put our drains'! Some say 
two or three feet; others four or five feet. Who 
are right 1 Last Autumn we dug a ditch 30 rods 
long, and 3 feet deep, as an experiment. We 
first plowed out about 20 inches, when we came 
to stones and hard-pan. The rest of it had to be 
worked out with the pick. The water will not 
run through the hard-pan any more than it will 
through cast iron. Now, what good will it do to 
dig ten inches deeper in such stuff ! I think 26 
inches is about enough for such land ; that is, 5 
or 6 inches for the tiles or stones, which ever 
may be used, and 20 to plow in, which is enough. 
Rusticus. 
Cattaraugus Co., N.Y., Jan. 15, 1859. 
The depth of drains depends entirely upon the 
circumstances in each case. A soil freed from 
water and penetrated by air four or five feet 
deep, is better for all crops than one only two or 
three feet deep. Nearly all kinds of cultivated 
crops send down roots four or five feet and more, 
where there is a good open soil to that depth ; 
and when roots thus reach down below the sun’s 
temporary effects, they are absolutely secure 
against all drouth. But plants will never go be¬ 
low the lowest point where air can penetrate. 
Without the oxidizing influence of air, soils al¬ 
most invariably contain more or less materials 
which are poisonous to plants. 
There is scarcely a “ hard-pan ” in any local¬ 
ity so perfectly impervious to water, that it will 
not gradually soak through into an open passage 
or drain, if there is one near. The depth ol 
drains depends much on their nearness together, 
and the porousness of the soil. In porous soils 
drains three feet deep and fifty feet or more 
apart, will drain the entire surface soil three feet 
deep. 
In impervious soils the drains must be nearer 
and deeper. If in such soils the drains be forty feet 
apart, and four feet deep, they will drain twenty 
feet on each side ; but, owing to the impervious 
nature of the soil, they may not drain the middle 
line between the drains more than two or three 
feet deep ; while alongside of the drains they will 
remove the water four feet deep. The deeper the 
drains, the more fall there will be to the water— 
and the greater will be the pressure to carry it 
through hard and impervious soils. To illustrate : 
Set up a brick tube four feet long, and closed at 
the bottom. Then fill it with water. You will 
see a little moisture oozing at the sides near 
the top—water farther down, and near the bottom 
of the tube, the water will almost run through. 
It is much the same in draining impervious or 
clay soils. The deeper the drains, the greater the 
pressure of the water to get into them.—E d. 
-----—. - - - 
Written for the American Agriculturist—Prize Articles. 
Farm Fencing. Ill 
GROWING THE HEDGE. 
The “ quicks,” as the English thorn-hedgers 
call the young plants used in constructing their 
hedges, are grown from the seeds, which are 
abundantly produced in the “haws,” or fruit which 
give them such a lively appearance in Autumn, 
as on our native thorns in America. They are 
readily gathered by children, the seeds washed 
out, by soaking in water, and a gentle pounding 
in a shallow tub with a light club, like a washing 
pounder in shape, and used in the same manner. 
They are then dried, and before Winter sets in, 
are thickly sown in nursery rows in earth deeply 
dug or plowed, and of moderate fertility. The 
hard thick shell renders the operation of se¬ 
vere frosts upon them necessary to their ger¬ 
mination in the Spring, and a second Winter is 
sometimes needed to bring them all into sprout¬ 
ing. Our American Winters being more severe, 
a larger number of the planted seeds would pro¬ 
bably grow the first season, than in England. Our 
Osage Orange, Arbor Vita;, and other hedgeing 
seeds are planted in the same way. We rely 
for them mostly on the seed stores, they being 
grown and gathered usually in localities more 
or less distant. For the privet we need no 
such preparation, it grows immediately in the 
hedge row from the slips, or last year’s cuttings. 
The nursery plants usually require two years’ 
growth, with good cultivation, before they are fit 
to transplant into the hedge row. The hedge row, 
itself, should be"thorough!y prepared by a previous 
season’s deep plowing, and pulverizing—manuring 
even, if the soil be poor. It is scarcely necessary 
to add that the hedge row should be dry—or well 
drained, if not dry—and slightly crowning in shape 
three to four feet wide. Into this the plants should 
be transferred early in the Spring. Fall planting 
unless in very favorable positions, subjects the 
‘quicks’ to be thrown out by the frosts of Winter 
and the consequent heaving and settling of (he 
