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WHOLE OR CUT POTATOES FOE SEED. 
Nearlv fifty years ago Thomas Andrew 
Knight, President of the London Horticul¬ 
tural Society, wrote a very exhaust! re essay 
upon the above named subject, proving con¬ 
clusively, to many, that whole potatoes were 
far preferable to pieces of tubers for plant¬ 
ing. Mr. Knight, at that time and for many 
succeeding years, was considered, in Great 
Britain, the highest authority in the world 
on all horticultural subjects, consequently 
his opinions carried great weight among the 
people. His idea was that a tuber, as a 
whole, was but one seed, like-a kernel of 
corn. But we now consider a potato tuber 
more like an ear of corn containing many 
seeds, each of which is capable of proueding a 
plant equal in strength and value to the 
whole combined. Of course there are hun¬ 
dreds of farmers who will, and do, cling to 
this old theory of Mr. Knight’s, despite of 
all the science or practice to the contrary. 
We should think, however, that, the enorm¬ 
ous yield secured from the various new sorts 
within the past few years and frequently re¬ 
ferred to in the agricultural journals, all of 
which have been produced from cut seed, 
would begin to awaken the sticklers for 
whole seed and set. them to making experi¬ 
ments in this direction. No one will suppose 
for a moment the yields reported in the case 
of the Buss prize* for the Early Vermont 
and Compton Surprise could have been se¬ 
cured by planting whole tubers. Those 
farmers who believe that whole tubers are 
best for seed should look at these iiguros— 
511 14, C07, 437 and >156 pounds, raised by 
different men in different, localities, each 
having but one pound for seed. We think 
these facts and figures are worth a dozen 
theories, and well worth remembering at 
planting time. 
---- 
PREMIUM POTATOES. 
them for seed but feed them to the pigs ; for 
seed with such a product, certainly is not 
worth propagating. If friend Pike wishes 
to try his hand on the real Compton’s, and 
will give me his address, I will send him a 
real Compton, poKt-paid by mail, that I will 
warrant to yield two bushels, with ordinary 
culture, planting one eye in a hill. M 3 ’ luck 
is as follows:—One potato, costing £1.42 by 
weight : planted one eye in a hill, making 
18 hills three and a half feet apart, with good 
ordinary culture, covered the ground with 
strong tops, and dug just as the first‘heavy 
frost commenced, produced two bushels and 
a peck. I have not. a city wife, but am a 
city man and hardly “know beaoa” about 
farming ; but you have above what I know 
about the yield of one Compton Surprise Po¬ 
tato. I have none to sell, intending to plant 
what T do not give away, in the spring. — J 
B. Judkins, Winchester, Mass. 
In reply hi Mr. Andrew S. Nash hi II u- 
RAL'of Nov. 22d, page 330, in regard to Comp¬ 
ton’s Surprise Potato:—I bought one pound 
of seed, cut to one eye, and made 42 hills 
planted about the 20th of May ; dug about 
the 25t.ll of Sept.; yield from one rod of 
ground 275 lbs. of good-sized potatoes, and 
ull sound ; and at that rate the yield per acre 
would be 720 bushels. Not very bad ! Think 
Mr. Nash had better move Into Western 
New York, where he can get larger returns 
from his investments. Let us hear from some 
more of Compton’s Surprise !—A Subscrib¬ 
er, Batavia, N. Y, 
■- 4 ~*~*- 
WOEM-EATEN PEAS. 
The New York Tribune says :—We lately 
interviewed a practical farmer who, for 
several years past, has taken the first prize 
for liis potatoes. In reply to inquiries as to 
his mode of operations, he said that the larg 
est and best shaped tubers arc always select 
ed for planting at. digging time the previous 
year; and lie tluds that they have been 
gradually increasing in size until his potatoes 
are now enormous. Sod ground is chosen 
for the crop ? it is very carefully and deeply 
plowed and thoroughly pulverized with the 
spike harrow. Previous to breaking up, 
however, the whole surface is heavily ma¬ 
nured and this manure raked into the fur¬ 
row as the plow passes round. The tubers 
are cut into quarters a few days before 
planting and dropped in the rows sixteen or 
eighteen inches apart. The rows are struck 
out with the plow about three feet dist ant , 
and the seed is (fevered with a good depth of 
soil. A roller passed over the ground, level¬ 
ing and smoothing the surface, to be followed 
in a short time by the spike harrow. As 
soon as the young plants appear above the 
ground the cultivator is started and kept go¬ 
ing frequently throughout the growing sea¬ 
son. Every weed is pulled up as soon as it 
makes its appearance; for, to use his own 
expression, he is “ too poor to grow weeds.” 
As the plants wax strong, slight furrows are 
thrown up to them with a small plow’, and 
these are still further increased afterward 
by a repetition of the same process. In dig¬ 
ging, great care is taken not to skin or bruise 
the tubers, but to handle them ali carefully, 
and this enables the owner to preserve them 
much better than the careless farmer w’ho 
throws his potatoes about as if they were 
cobble stones. This is the only magic he em¬ 
ploys, Careful choice of seed, thorough 
preparation of the soil, frequent stirring of 
the surface and total extinction of weeds— 
these are the secrets of his success. 
-♦-♦>4- 
COMPTON’S SUEPEISE POTATO. 
1 Prof. Maurice Perkins, Union Univer¬ 
sity, Schenectady, furnishes the following 
for the. Country Gentleman : 
Very often in the spring 1 have noticed 
that the peas, be&ns, &e., for sale in the 
stores for seed wore worm-eaten. In many 
cases the seeds were *0 eaten as to be useless 
for seed. The worm, and even the egg, may 
be easily destroyed by the bisulphid of car¬ 
bon, a colorless, volatile liquid, having an 
odor like that of rotten eggs. If the barrel 
containing the seed is not quite full, moisten 
a piece of cloth with the liquid, lay it on the 
seeds and cover the barrel with an old horse- 
blanket.. The vapor of the bisulphid will 
sink down among the seeds and destroy all 
auimal life. The seeds themselves will not 
be injured. Two or three ounces will lie 
enough for a half dozen barrels. This liquid 
is used in Europe to destroy the weevil in 
wheat. 1 have not seen the above mentioned 
in any agricultural paper, and thought that 
it might prove useful to some of your readers. 
-- *'■*-* - 
FIELD NOTES. 
In Rural New-Yorker of December 0, I 
was much amused at reading the article 
headed “Compton’s Surprise Potato,” over 
the signature of N. W. Pike. His wife was 
right when she told him that it was an awful 
price to pay £3 for three such potatoes ; but 
w r as not right when she said that she could 
buy two pair of Alexander’s best kid gloves 
for the same sum—they would cost consid¬ 
erable more. Friend Pike’s three potatoes 
could not have been Compton’s Surprise, or 
else he knows but little about potato cul¬ 
ture. If 4G hills of his Compton’s, with one 
eye in a liill, with ordinary culture, produced 
only a half bushel, he had better not save 
Cost and Profit of a Buckwheat Crop.— 
As I am a farmer and a Rural reader, I 
will give you a statement of my buckwheat 
crop, raised during the season of 1873, which 
you may publish if you wish. The cost on 
14 acre* of buckwheat: — Plowing, 7 days, 
825 ; lmrrowing. 4 days, £15; sowing, 1 day, 
£1.50; 9 bushels seed buckwheat, £9; cutting 
buckwheat and setting Up, £15; drawing and 
threshing, £24; interest oil land, £98; total, 
$187.50—or 43 cents per bushel. Pasturage 
before plowing, $3-3; 430 bushels, at $1 per 
bushel, £430; straw and fodder, $32 ; total, 
$497—leaving a net profit of $309.50.—W. H. 
K., Schoharie Co,, V. Y, 
Buckwheat for Stock, — John Johnson, 
who has a large experience as a cattle and 
sheep feeder, says :—“ 1 have fattened muny 
cattle and far more sheep, on all or part 
buckwheat, for the last twenty years, and it 
will fatten Btock as well for the amount of 
pounds as any other grain—oats, perhaps, 
exceptad ; and I would much rather have 
half buckwheat meal than all corn meal to 
feed three-year-old steers that have not been 
fed gram.” 
Barley in Iowa .—We see the following 
statement in the papers :—“There are 70,000 
bushels of barle}’ stored in Davenport, Iowa, 
which cannot be sold to-day for what it cost 
its producers.” We have to say that, we do 
not believe that, if such an amount, of barley 
is there, it cannot be sold at a profit to pro¬ 
ducers. It may be that producers have sold 
it to speculators at a loss on the cost of pro¬ 
duction ; if so, the holders are going to make 
a good thing out of it, or the barley is too 
poor to purchase. 
A Qood Season for Barley , Geo. Geddes 
says, is not a good one for raising Indian 
corn. The hot days hi J une and J uly that 
are so beneficial to com are not good for 
barley. Yet, in our judgment there are few 
localities north of the 42d parallel where bar¬ 
ley may not, taking the seasons as they 
average, bo profitably grown. 
n Horseman. 
HOESE WITH SWELLED LEGS. 
I have a mare with a tendency to swell in 
all her legs, particularly the hind ones ; and 
they will become frightfully large if she does 
not have exercise, 1 have a great aversion 
to give any kind of medicine, and also pre¬ 
fer prevention to cure ; therefore tills mare 
never stands in the stable more than can be 
avoided. She is taken out or turned out 
every day so that she is moved at work or 
exercises herself in an old grass field, or in a 
large yard; consequently, the swelling is 
very slight in the morning, scarcely visible. 
She had a colt., which was weaned last Au¬ 
gust, to have her services at some rather 
heavy hauling; the milk appeared to turn 
to humor, and she could scarcely move at 
starting; but, by feeding oats instead of corn 
and going at a slow pace at starting, till the' 
stiffness passed somewhat off, she gradually 
got better, and is at the present time in bet¬ 
ter condition than any other horse in the 
stable. I am convinced if she was to remain 
idle and in the stable for two or three days 
she would swell as bad as ever. 
Diuretic medicine will relieve this afflic¬ 
tion; or any food which operates on the 
urine, especially flaxseed jelly; but never- 
failing daily exercise is preferable to having 
resert, to death-dealing drug stores; and 
with the food mentioned (flaxseed) or aught 
else wholesomely acting on kidneys and 
bladder, there is no necessity to buy poisons 
at a hundred times their prime cost. Some 
animals are always liable to this swelling; 
but there is one consolation attending the 
case, as it is seldom any other evil accom¬ 
panies it, and it is certainly much better than 
having serious sickness from inflammation 
inwardly. The hind legs of many horses 
swell because they are tied up in stalls wliich 
are so slanting as to throw an unnatural 
weight upon them. Allow them to be loose, 
and any animal will generally have his fore 
feet on the lowest ground. Then again, some 
horses will not lie down when tied by a hal¬ 
ter; but this is not the case with my mare 
as she does rest by lying down in the night. 
B 3 * no means apply any lotion or audit 
else to drive it away, for many valuable 
horses have been ruined by doing so, the 
same as others have been by drying up 
cracked heels which vented the bad humors 
in the system. In England the whole of the 
horses in gentlemen’s stables are regularly 
walked out at daybreak, whether they are 
worked afterwards or not. It is quite com¬ 
mon to meet them in their clothes and hoodB, 
grooms riding one and leading one and some¬ 
times one on eacii side, they, the grooms, 
with the invariable great coats with capes, 
and muffled up around the ncek so that the 
damp, raw air should not affect them. This 
practice carries off the. humors in the horse’s 
system, and disperses them, so that after a 
month’s use, with a good sweating once or 
twice a week, “condition” is attained. 
These animals, being used for quick work, of 
course require more care than slow-working 
ones; and when they have been at grass and 
first come into the stable, have a course of 
physic balls given which carries off the soft 
and superfluous fat and flesh. 
I mention the treatment of “nag” horses, 
as they are called in England, because if a 
fine skin and st 3 iish condition is required, it 
will not do to turn them out into the cold as 
may be done with rough, hard}., farm horses 
which lie in airy, cool stables. 
A Working Farmer. 
-- 
very bad off, one round may not be suffi¬ 
cient. In all common cases it. will be. This 
medicine will also cure the worst case of 
scratches caused by impurity of the blood.— 
R. W. Hilborn, Jasper, N. Y. 
That Itching Tail,—I had a horse the past 
summer troubled as W. D. G.’s was. My 
remedy was an injection of strong benzine. 
It is an insect that causes the itching.—w. D. 
s. [We cannot sec what an injection has to 
do with an insect.—E ds.] 
W. B. says the cause of the itching tail " is 
in the mouth, and the horse should be treat¬ 
ed as for the lampas, viz.:—Cut the mouth 
inside the. teeth with a sharp knife. Care 
should be taken not to cut too high up; cut 
as near to the teeth as possible. If W. D. G. 
will try tins reined}’ he will find it effectual.” 
How to Start a Balky Horse, — GeO. M. 
Pullman of Palace Car fame, is credited 
with asserting that a balky horse can always 
be started by tying his tail to the whiffletree 
and starting the other horse. 
To Make. Hair (Jroic .—Will you, or some 
one, please inform me how to start hair on 
bare spots on horses ? The spots are all 
healed over.—H. P. H., Clyde, N. Y. 
SAWDUST IN THE STABLE. 
NOTES FOE HOESEMEN. 
New Corn for Horses .—A reader of the 
Rural New-Yorker, at Orunge, N. J., asks 
if new corn will give a horse the colic; il' so, 
how old it must be ere it is safe to feed it. 
We have known new coru to give homes 
colic; but it was only when too much of it 
was fed to them. No home should he fed 
exclusively on either new or old corn. If 
we were going to feed either, we should 
grind or boil it before feeding. We have fed 
corn from the time it began to ear until it 
was a year old, and never had any trouble 
in consequence. But we never fed over a 
peck of corn meal a day to any horse; and 
that is enough, if a fair proportion oj; good 
hay is given. 
Horse's Ley Swelling .—In Rural of Nov 
29th L. S. M., Crystal Springs, N. Y., asks a 
remedy for his horse’s leg swelling. Tell 
him to take three ounces black antimony, 
three ounces saltpeter and one-half pound 
sulphur; mix and give one tablespoonful 
once a day, in meal or bran. If his horse is 
The New England Farmer says :—“ The 
doctors and the professors are discussing 
the value of sawdust and shavings when ap¬ 
plied to land. Mr. Knox, in the New York 
Tribune, cautions against the use of shavings 
as a mulch, and believes they must prove 
injurious. Professor S. W. Johnson thinks 
otherwise. Both argue the case from a scien¬ 
tific stand point, Mr. Knox believes that 
potash must be fed to plants in an elementary 
or unoombined state. Mr. Johnson claims 
that pur© potash is destructive to vegetation, 
and can only become plant food when com¬ 
bined with an add. When doctors disagree 
who shall decide f We do not claim to know 
much about the chemistry of sawdust, but 
vve have used it several years as an absorbeut 
of urine, and as bedding for horses and cattle. 
We prefer to have it seasoned and dry, and 
should choose that made from hard wood, 
but we take such as we can get, wliich is 
nearly all made from pine logs. 
Our conclusions are that sawdust is the 
cleanest bedding we have ever used ; that if 
the manure is kept trodden down hard to 
prevent excessive fermentation, it is no injury 
to tlie manure h©ap. Our experiments prove 
that sawdust soaked with urine and used as 
a top-dressing on grass land, will show where 
it was spread by an increased growth of 
grass ; that when the manure is made up 
largely of sawdust, that is, when enough is 
used to .soak up and retain all the urine, it 
has never injured any of tho crops to which 
it has been applied. We have grown all 
kinds of crops on it, without perceiving any 
injurious effects therefrom. We shall con¬ 
tinue its use in such quantities as will make 
comfortable bedding for our cows, and as an 
absorbent, till we see some harm done by it, 
as long as it can be obtained by carting two 
or three miles. As a fertilizer, perhaps sand 
or loam, or dry muck, or straw would bo 
better ; but all cannot have these in abund¬ 
ance, and we must use for bedding the best 
materials within our reach.” 
Our own experience with sawdust (whether 
pine, hemlock, spruce or hard wood) lias 
boon similar to that of our contemporary. 
We would not apply sawdust to land without 
composting it; but it is one of the best 
methods of composting, to litter the cattle 
and horse stables with it. 
ECONOMY IN TREATMENT OF SOIL. 
Some people suppose agricultural prosper¬ 
ity dependent upon good implements, cheap 
labor and economy so severe as to border on 
parsimony; but though good implements 
must be used and labor should be made cheap 
by being wisely applied, yet it is the liberal 
mind which maketh rich. The greatest point, 
the chief object, is to keep the soil in the 
highest state of fertility so that good tools 
and workmen may have such fruitful land 
to cultivate that there will be an overflowing 
in every part of tiiB farm. Look at agricul¬ 
ture in New England ! Nine-tenths of the 
land is exhausted and there is seen the most 
industrious race in existence, working every 
atom of fat out of their system, and most of 
the flesh ; yet only half good crops are ob¬ 
tained, whereas, had the original fertility 
never been allowed to decrease, loss self- 
denial, and more enjoyment of life in every 
way would have been the legacy of the 
fathers. A Working Farmer. 
