AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
103 
The Buckeye Potato. 
A correspondent last month, (p. 70) criticised 
this rather severely, which called forth several 
letters of remonstrance, to which we were dis¬ 
posed at first to give heed. To convince us of 
the value of these, a firm having them for sale 
kindly sent us a barrel for trial. We also pro¬ 
cured specimens from other sources, and are sor¬ 
ry to say we can not commend the potatato. 
Granting all that is claimed for it by our corres¬ 
pondents as a quick and prolific grower, we should 
still have to condemn it from the fact that among 
all the various specimens we examined, a majori¬ 
ty of the sizable potatoes were hollow in the 
center, or near one end. Some of those cut open 
were sound at the center, but a hollow would be 
found in one or other of the pieces or both of 
them. We tried perhaps sixty potatoes, grown 
by several different parties with the same result. 
This defect alone would unfit it for market. 
Cultivation of Carrots. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist : 
As I have been engaged in the cultivation of 
carrots to the extent of from one to two thou¬ 
sand bushels a year for several years past, I have 
thought I could give a few ideas which would 
interest, if not instruct some of your readers. 
My soil is loam, consideraby mixed with clay, 
with a hard-pan subsoil, and is therefore much 
improved by blind drains and deep plowing. I 
select ground which has been in cultivation one 
or more years, and after clearing the surface of 
all small stones and other rubbish, cart on a good 
coat of manure and plow in deeply : follow¬ 
ing by the subsoil plow improves it. I think fresh 
manure from the stable will bring as good a crop 
as compost manure, but it is more in the way 
while preparing the ground for sowing. If the 
weather is dry, no more should be plowed at a 
time, than can be harrowed and raked in a few 
hours, as it is likely to become lumpy. I use a 
harrow for that purpose made as follows. Take a 
2 inch plank 8 feel long and 1 foot wide ; into one 
edge of this, frame four 2x4 joist, 4 feet long, so 
that when framed the plank will stand edgewise. 
On the bottom of these pieces nail boards, also 
one on the top to ride on. As this moves along, 
the plank in front being set edgewise, will level 
the ground and the boards back of it will smooth 
it. Mellow ground worked in this way will not 
require much raking. 
I plant from the 15th to the last of May, and 
the late sowed have always done as well as the 
others. I think the Long Orange variety the 
best; though not as heavy as the Altringham, 
they generally yield more bushels to the acre. 
I sow about two pounds of seed to the acre, with 
a machine, in drills sixteen inches apart; though 
I think twenty inches would bring as large a crop 
with less rows to weed. As soon as they show 
the third leaf, which is generally in about two 
weeks from planting, they should be hoed and 
cleaned from all weeds, and thinned to four or six 
inches in the row : after this hoe and weed often 
enough to keep clean. I use a hoe nine inches 
long and one and-a-half wide, drawing it as near 
the row as possible. 
I harvest them from the 10th to the 25th of 
November. The freezing of the top of the ground 
will not injure them, but it is not safe to leave 
them too late, for fear of snow or hard frost. 
For digging, I use a subsoil plow, letting it run 
on the left hand side of the row, and if your team 
works true it will raise them so that two men 
pulling will keep up with the plow. With the 
help of two men I have pulled sixty bushels in 
one hour. I throw them into piles and cart them 
in before night with the tops on ; as at that sea¬ 
son of the year it is generally cold topping them 
in the field, and there is time to top them wet 
days, and mornings before the frost is off. The 
root will keep better if the tops are taken off 
about an inch above the crown. A cellar that 
will keep potatoes through the Winter is rather 
warm for them ; they do better where they can 
be kept cool. If put in in large quantities there 
should be chimneys made of slats and set up 
once in a few feet through the pile. I have kept 
them in good order in this way until June. 
I sell them for feed for horses at about thirty- 
two cents per bushel or $16 per tun. Every man 
who keeps a horse should feed some, as I am 
told by those who ought to know, that they assist 
in digestion of the other feed of the horse, thus 
giving him more nourishment from that, besides 
what he gets from the carrots. 
Six or eight hundred bushels to the acre is a 
common crop. I plant year after year on the 
same ground with good success. The best should 
be saved for seed, the large heads of seed being 
used, and the rest burned. Carrots for seed should 
be set out as soon as the frost is out in the Spring; 
tie them up to prevent them from cracking off of 
the main stump. Give the carrot tops to the 
cows, it will make rich milk and yellow butter. 
Southport, Conn. D. H. Sherwood. 
■--- -* «-- 
Agricultural Department at Washington. 
WHAT IT MIGHT BE, OUGHT TO BE, BUT IS NOT. 
After sending our last number to press we spent 
ten days on a visit to our National Capital, partly 
to gain health and vigor by release from business 
cares, and partly to witness the congressional 
proceedings during the last week of the Session. 
Another object in view was to look into the oper¬ 
ations of the so-called agricultural Department, 
connected with the Patent Office, and supported 
by the Public Treasury. To prevent any embar¬ 
rassment, or interference with our investigations, 
we purposely avoided direct contact with the chief 
“ agricultural clerk,” who, though not nominally, 
yet really holds under his exclusive surveil¬ 
lance, control, and direction, the entire operations 
of the agricultural department. We passed much 
time, however, with sundry gentlemen in Wash¬ 
ington, who are well informed as to the way 
things are managed, including sundry members 
of Congress, members of the Congressional Com¬ 
mittee on Agriculture, etc. ; and we also had a 
lengthy personal interview with Commissioner 
Holt, who is (or was then) the nominal head of 
the Agricultural Department. From the informa¬ 
tion thus gained, in addition to what we had pre¬ 
viously known, and from several sources of future 
intelligence opened to us, we propose from time 
to time to set before the public the defects and 
wants of the department, with the hope of en¬ 
lightening our readers, and so far as may be, con¬ 
tributing to improvement in the management of 
one of the most important departments connected 
with our General Government. 
As now managed, the agricultural operations 
at Washington are a sham—a shame to us as an 
agricultural people. Our government might well, 
and ought to spend at least a million dollars an¬ 
nually in promoting the agricultural and horticul¬ 
tural improvement of the country, but without a 
change in the present organization it would be 
far better to save the sixty or seventy thousand 
dollars spent in salaries, in seeds, and in getting 
up the Annual Reports, and also the hundred and 
fifty or two hundred thousand dollars more for 
printing, binding, and distributing these* 1 Reports” 
(See next page for notes on the last publish¬ 
ed Report). This view is already taken of the sub¬ 
ject by many Members of Congress. This year 
the appropriation is cut down to the pittance of 
forty thousand dollars, and several Members 
stated to us that even this sum would have been 
withheld, had it not been for the hurried legisla¬ 
tion of the closing hours, when it passed, without 
discussion, as an appendage to the general appro¬ 
priation bill. We were in the gallery of the 
House at the time, and noted that it received but 
a small vote, though enough to constitute a ma¬ 
jority of those present, giving attention and voting 
when this particular appropriation chanced to be 
passed along with many others. As a member of 
the House remarked to us, “several Represent¬ 
atives who give no attention to the matter of ag¬ 
riculture and know little or nothing on the sub¬ 
ject, were afraid to vote against any measure of 
this kind, lest it should be construed by their con¬ 
stituents in the * Rural Districts ’ as an evidence 
of want of sympathy and interest in the * bone and 
sinew.’ ” We were assured by Members of the 
next Congress, that the entire agricultural depart¬ 
ment would be abolished next Winter unless a 
decided change be made in its organization, 
efficiency and usefulness. Appended to the ap¬ 
propriation was this significant clause : 
“ Provided, That no part of the appropriation shall be 
used or expended in defraying the expenses of a body of 
men or delegates assembled in Washington or elsewhere, 
as an agricultural college or * advisory board of agricul¬ 
ture,’ convened under the authority of the Secretary of 
the Interior, or any other person, under any name, for any 
object whatever.” 
This was designed as a direct censure upon 
the recent enterprize of the “ agricultural clerk,” 
(noticed by us in February, p. 35) viz. : the se¬ 
cret calling together of a selected paid coterie of 
persons to whitewash the doings of the depart¬ 
ment. [In this connection we would inquire why 
the report of that “Advisory Board of Agricultur¬ 
ists ” has never been permitted to see the light, 
though called for by Congress. Rumor says, the 
“ agricultural clerk ” caught a Tartar in the re¬ 
port itself, as prepared by them. We call for its 
publicaiton as originally made by the committee 
of that body.] 
As a further indication of the feeling in Con¬ 
gress, we may add that the Senate refused to 
print the usual copies of the Agricultural 
Report. The House, at first also refused to print 
them, but after the loss of the bill to abolish the 
franking privilege, several members, who wished 
to have a supply of electioneering documents, to 
frank as a “ sop ” or compliment to their “ rural 
constituents,” contrived to get a hasty vote in the 
House for printing 210,000 copies of some kind of 
an Agricultural Report—they knew not what, for 
they only voted upon the title page, and for aught 
they or we know, it will be as poor a thing as its 
immediate predecessor. 
HOW THE AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT IS 
ORGANIZED. 
As every one perhaps understands, the execu¬ 
tive government is divided into “Departments,” 
as the Department of the Interior, the Depart¬ 
ment of War, of the Navy, of the Treasury, and 
of the Post Office. The head or chief officer ot 
each Department is called the Secretary of that 
Department, except the P. O. Secretary, who is 
called Post Master General. These several chief 
officers are appointed by the President, and they 
together form his Cabinet. 
The Secretary of the Interior has charge of sev¬ 
eral sub Departments, such as the Patent Office, 
