AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
359 
tation in choosing farming as a vocation for boys, 
and in educating them to this end. The time is 
hastening when educated, thinking farmers alone 
can expect great success, and those who are wise 
will prepare their sons accordingly, if it be de¬ 
cided that this shall be their business. 
The boy’s own choice should have some weight 
in selecting a calling, but it is unwise to be gov¬ 
erned by that alone. The fancies and whims of 
youth are too unsafe for a matter involving much 
of the prosperity of after life. A wise parent will 
so inspire his son with a love for what is thought 
best for him, that he will enter upon it from 
choice. Let this matter be duly considered. It 
may well be a subject for thought and discussion 
during the long evenings of the approaching sea¬ 
son. Pater. 
fore the freezing of the ground, and then, if for 
early use, put into a dry store-room, and filled in 
and around with dry sand or earth. For keeping 
through Winter, the following plan is practiced. 
Select a dry spot, and raise the earth for a hed 
six inches high, and a foot or so wider than is re¬ 
quired for the heap. Spread on a bed of straw 
8 or 10 inches deep, and put on a layer of pota¬ 
toes, a foot high. Over them put a layer of straw 
like the first, and over this put a covering of 15 
or 18 inches of earth. Boards or old canvas may 
then be put over the whole, to shed off rain, as it 
is important to keep them dry. In this manner 
they may be kept until wanted in Spring. 
Experiments with Potatoes. 
A ¥ew Basket for Small Fruits. 
The immense number of baskets required for 
gathering and marketing small fruits, renders any 
improvement in the construction or cost of such 
baskets a matter of no little interest. At two or 
three of the recent Agricultural Exhibitions, we 
saw specimens of baskets on a new plan, invent¬ 
ed and patented by David Cook, of Conn., which 
appear to be superior to anything we have before 
noticed. The accompanying engraving gives the 
general form of a quart basket we have in pos¬ 
session. Those of larger and smaller sizes are 
precisely like this in form. The bottom is a thin 
circular board. The sides are smooth strips of 
basswood not quite an eighth of an inch in thick¬ 
ness, and slit in the manner shown in the en¬ 
graving. A hoop of tin around the bottom, with 
a small nail through each of the upright strips 
holds them firmly in place. The upper ends are 
also held firmly by a tin hoop bent or doubled over 
the top, and fastened to the strips with double¬ 
headed nails or rivets. The baskets are spread at 
the top so as to nest or pack together. The fruit 
is also supported in part by the flaring sides. 
These baskets are very strong and firm, and quite 
cheap withal—those holding a full pint being sold 
at S3 per hundred, and the quart sizes at $5 per 
hundred. They will doubtless be advertised as 
soon as a supply is ready for market. 
- O « ■ I c e>- -— - 
Keeping Sweet Potatoes. 
From a plot of 24 hills, on rather heavy ground, 
we this year obtained about bushels of very 
fair sweet potatoes ; the success, under the cir¬ 
cumstances, will warrant us in planting more 
largely next year. While fresh dug, they were 
quite good, but by mistake most of them were 
dug too early, and simply put in a barrel in a 
warm cellar. The result is, those unconsumed 
after ten days from digging, are mostly decaying. 
They should have been dug at the latest day be¬ 
Wm. F. Heins, of this city, furnishes for the 
Agriculturist an account of some careful experi¬ 
ments with potatoes made by him the present 
year on his place in Westchester County, N. Y., 
from which a few suggestions may be derived by 
the reader. Five-eighths of an acre, or 100 square 
rods, were set apart for the experiments, and di¬ 
vided into three plots of 40, 30, and 30 rods. 
The entire area, which had been used for potatoes 
during two years preceding, was thoroughly and 
deeply plowed and harrowed. Three weeks be¬ 
fore planting, twelve loads of manure—two-thirds 
from the horse stable, and one-third from the cow 
stable—were spread over the whole and lightly 
plowed in. 
Plot No. 1, containing 40 rods, planted with 
Prince Albert potatoes, was treated to an addi¬ 
tional manure made up thus: onc-half of bone- 
dust, ivory filings and whalebone chips ; one-fourth 
of Plaster of Paris and wood ashes ; onc-cigluh of 
an earthy mixture of decaying potato vines and 
w r eeds; and one-eighth Peruvian Guano. This 
compost was put into the drills, and covered with 
a little rotten stable manure, and the seed, cut in 
1 and 2 eye pieces, put directly on the manure. 
Plots No. 2 and 3, of 30 rods each, received no 
extra manure in the hill, but were cultivated in 
other respects with the same care as No. 1. Plot 
No. 2, was planted with Mercers, and No. 3 witli 
a variety called red Chili potatoes. No rot ap¬ 
peared among any of the potatoes. The result¬ 
ing crop was as follows : 
No. l. 
No. 2. 
No. 3. 
Ground. 
40 rods. 
30 rods. 
30 rods. 
Varieties. Seed, Planted. 
Prince Alberts.]5 bushels. 
Mercers. 2 bushels. 
Red Chili. 2 bushels. 
Product. 
78 bushels. 
18 bushels. 
24 bushels. 
Reckoning these results by the acre we have 
the following: 
Seed. Product. 
Whole 
Cost. 
Value of crop 
at 15c. pr bu. 
$234 
72 
96 
The larger yield of No. 1 is due to two causes, 
No. ) 
Pr. Alberts|20 bu. 
312 bu. 
$87.76 
No. 2 
Mercers. 
103 bu. 
96 bu. 
55.68 
No. 3 
Red Chili. 
] 103 bu. 
128 bu. 
55.68 
viz : the larger quantity of seed, and the higher 
manuring received. The experiments would have 
been more complete, had there been other plots 
planted with the same proportion of seed of 
each variety, but with the different manuring, 
and also different amounts of seed of each variety, 
with the different manures. All these condi¬ 
tions should be taken into account in making com¬ 
parative experiments. 
Taking the three plots together, the total outlay 
was as follows: 
12 loads of stable manure at $1.50 per load.,..$18.00 
1 bag of Peruvian Guano... .. 4.50 
Mixture of bone dust, ivory filings, etc.. 3.75 
9 bushels of seed at $1 in the Spring. 9.00 
Plowing, harrowing, planting, and hilling. 4.50 
Potato Digger, very handy, still good for many years 12.00 
Digging and putting in pits, complete. 8.25 
Total outlay...$60.00 
We have included the whole cost of the Dig¬ 
ging Implement, allowing its after value to coun¬ 
terbalance the rent or use of the ground. We 
have also allowed $1 per bushel for the value of 
the seed potatoes last Spring. All these esti¬ 
mates of expenses are rather too high, but this 
will not affect the point we are aiming to illus¬ 
trate. At the above estimate the 120 bushels, 
the product of the three plots, cost 50 cents per 
bushel. But they are now worth 75 cents per 
bushel, being a profit on the whole of $30, or at 
the rale of $48 per acre. 
But now take Plot No. 1, and charge it with its 
proportionate expenses thus : 
5 loads of manure... $7 50 
Bag of guano .. 4.50 
Compost (bone dust, ivory shavings, etc.). 3 75 
Tillage of 1 acre . j '50 
Digging and Storing. 3^50 
Use of land and of digger, say. 5 25 
Total cost of i acre.$26.00 
The product of 78 bushels, then cost 33^- cents 
a bushel. At 75 cents per bushel, this plot gives 
a profit on the 78 bushels of $32.60, or $130^0 
profit per acre. The point we would specially en¬ 
force is, that plenty of seed, and particularly, 
plenty of good manure pays. Thus by looking 
over the results on plots No. 2 and 3, where only 
yard manure was used and that moderately, we 
find that the 42 bushels cost about 60 cents 
per bushel, while, all other treatment being the 
same, the addition of the guano and the compost, 
on No. 1, reduced the cost to 33£c. This is only 
another instance going to prove what we have so 
often urged, that it is far more profitable to till a 
small quantity of land well , than to go over a large 
space, poorly manured, or otherwise poorly culti¬ 
vated. We are not certain but Mr. Heins’ object 
in giving us these figures was to show the supe¬ 
rior productiveness of the Prince Albert potatoes ; 
but as above remarked, the entirely different treat¬ 
ment and amount of seed, leave us no chance to 
compare the relative yield, and we have therefore 
chosen to turn these experiments to account in 
another way. 
- rysSM S-BB a** —.. > -- 
Potato Fly, (Cantharis vittala.) 
J. M, B., of Dutchess Co., N. Y., sends several 
specimens of a beetle, which he says has 
done considerable damage to the leaves of vari¬ 
ous garden vegetables—chiefly ihe potato and 
beet, and asks from those who have had ex¬ 
perience, what they are, and the best means of 
stopping their ravages. The beetles we readily 
recognize as the Cantharis vittala or potato fly. 
They are about £ inch in length ; thorax or chest 
quite long ; wing covers black, with white lines on 
margin ; general color dark or black ; resemble 
a common house-fly, but much longer in propor¬ 
tion to bulk. We leave the further query of our 
correspondent to be answered by others, witli the 
remark that unleached wood ashes or air-slaked 
lime, sown upon the tops of vegetables while the 
dew is on, is distasteful to insects generally.... 
We may add that, where in great numbers, these 
potato-flies may be turned to account by shaking 
them into a pan of hot water ; then collect 
and dry them on sheets of paper, and sell them 
to your apothecary for blister flies. They are real 
blister flies, being first cousins to the Cantharis 
hispanica, so extensively imported for making 
blistering salve. 
A past People. —At a late agricultural show 
in England, an American exhibited a fast-trotting 
American horse, which cantered and trotted re¬ 
markably well, but which was a bad walker. A 
person looking on, after having admired the trot¬ 
ting and cantering, asked, “ How about the walk¬ 
ing 1” “ Walking 1 ” said Jonathan, “ well, really 
I don't know about that; we’re not so slow in the 
States as to notice that.” 
