the hill with the tubers. The Colorado beetle 
is most easily destroyed by lightly dusting 
with Paris-green or London-purple diluted 
with 200 parts by weight of land-plaster. On 
large plantations this pest is proportionally 
much less troublesome than on small; to meet 
him promptly is more than half the battle. 
DIGGING, STORING AND MARKETING. 
The best hand-tool is the digging-fork. A 
horse-digger has the great advantage of en¬ 
abling one to finish up a field in the interval 
of other work, or between showers, or to meet 
a sudden demand for a large lot. In other 
words, it enables one to hold his crop in hand, 
and it might be wise to use it even at cost of a 
small part of the crop; but it should only be or¬ 
dered on trial. Potatoes should not be exposed to 
the sun and air longer than is necessary to dry 
off the surface moisture. They should then 
be gathered into heaps of a wagon-load each, 
and covered with straw, and a few inches of 
earth. After they have done “sweating,” 
they should at once be put into winter-quar¬ 
ters—any place where the temperature is 
uniformly just above freezing, and where they 
are. not exposed to light or drying air. A 
dusting with slaked lime is said to check the 
rot, but I never had occasion to try it. 
As potatoes are heavy to handle, and shrink 
when stored, it is better to market them direct 
from the field, unless you have good reason 
to expect a large advance in price—many 
good judges say not less than 30 per cent. 
The potato is very sensitive: no crop re¬ 
sponds more liberally to kindly and prompt 
treatment. I am acquainted with growers, 
whose crops every year are fully four times as 
large per acre as the average of the State, 
and their secret is thoroughness. Agricul¬ 
tural advice, like the gospel, profiteth not if 
it be not mixed with faith in them that hear 
it. Have faith in the possibilities of the crop, 
work it as if you believed in it, and you will 
be rewarded. 
I conclude with two arithmetical prob¬ 
lems: 1, What would be the yield of an acre 
planted at the distance of 32x12 inches, if the 
the plants yield, on an average, two pounds? 
2. How much money can you profitably lay 
out in labor, manure, etc,, to raise your pres¬ 
ent crop to that? 
deep if the previous cultivation justifies it; 
but never bring up a thick layer of raw sub¬ 
soil. Plow in the Fall if it is important to 
save time in Spring, and if the soil is a tough 
sod, or tenacious clay, needing time, frost and 
air to mellow it. and provided it is not a hill¬ 
side liable to wash, or a flat, und rained clay 
which the Winter storms will melt to a paste. 
Harrow about four times as much, as in “ordi¬ 
nary farming” is considered thorough work. 
It pays well even to pulverize stubble ground 
before plowing, and when this fine soil has 
been thrown by the plow to the bottom, to 
harrow again till the whole depth of the soil is 
fine. Load the harrow, if need be, and hitch 
on as many horses as are required to make 
thorough work. 
MARKING. 
Mark for drills rather than hills, unless the 
soil is so foul that cross-cultivation is neces¬ 
sary. In good potato soil the best depth is 
from four to five inches, in damp and heavy 
ground, from three to four. The Beauty of 
Kebron and similar compact growers, if cut to 
single eyes, do as well when planted in rows 
32 inches apart as when allowed more room. 
The White Elephant, and such spreading va¬ 
rieties, and the Beauty of Hebron, if cut two 
eyes to a piece, will require three feet; 
ranks growers require more room than 
compact, bushy growers, and I prefer to get 
this room by spreading the rows rather than 
by planting the seed further apart in the rows. 
But rows only 32 inches apart must be very 
straight for easy cultivation. 
CUTTING THE SEED. 
Each eye of a potato produces a perfect 
plant; therefore to secure the best develop¬ 
ment the eyes must be separated. The only 
question now open, is whether to cut to single 
eyes, or with two eyes in a piece. I believe 
that the “maximum weight” will be produced 
by planting two eyes, but the “maximum 
yield” of good potatoes by planting one eye in 
a place. But it would be well to plant alter¬ 
nate rows each way, till you ascertain what is 
beston your soil, with the varieties you grow. 
In cutting potatoes it is important to make a 
deep out, iuwards to the axis of the tuber; a 
scooping cut, leaving the eye on a thin disk of 
the flesh, frequently results in a total failure 
of the seed to grow, aud generally in a weaker 
growth. The cnt should be slanting towards 
the stem end, weak eyes being rejected. But 
when one has paid three dollars a pound for a 
fancy new variety, he can afford to carefully 
separate all the little eyes at the seed end, 
and, also, to divide the strong eyas into four 
or more parts, and nurse them as they need, 
I once tried the common plan of rolling the 
cut pieces in laud plaster to absorb the sur¬ 
plus moisture, and prevent rot; but I failed 
to get a uniform stand, which never happened 
when freshly cut seed was planted. Twice I 
had seed unintentionally exposed to the air 
after it was cut, and the result was unfavora¬ 
ble. I have also “ripened” the uncut pota¬ 
toes by exposing them to light till a stiff coni¬ 
cal green sprout a half-inch long formed; a 
little time seemed to be gained at the begin¬ 
ning, but the crop was no better at the end. I 
have now adopted the rule of covering the 
seed as soon after cutting as possible. 
PLANTING AND COVERING. 
Plant as close together as is consistent with 
the full development of each plant. The rich¬ 
er the soil the more plants it will sustain. In 
the best soil 12 inches apart is as good as a 
greater distance. Cover with fine earth as 
soon as the seed is dropped, especially if the 
sun is shining. If the soil is dry. and there 
is prospect of dry weather, it is well to roll, 
and follow with a smoothing harrow. 
CULTIVATION 
should be constant and to the end. Begin with 
the harrow a few days after planting, and 
repeat at intervals of a few days, till the tops 
are so large that the harrow begins to injure 
them. Then start a light cultivator with nar¬ 
row teeth, which will not hill the rows much. 
Sink it as deep as possible iu the middles the 
first aud second time when the roots will not 
be broken by it, but after wards inn only abont 
two inches deep, the object being to kill weeds, 
and keep a fine surface. Keep the field as 
level as possible, unless ridges are needed to 
assist the drainage of wet land. If the soil 
cracks so as to expose the tubers to the sun, it 
has not been stirred enough, or else the seed 
was planted too shallow. Of coarse, in such 
a cose oue should hill enough to protect the 
tubers from the sun. Continue cultivation, 
August; therefore, plant as early as possible. 
I put this first, for the ambitious grower must 
“get a good ready.” Our old rule: “For early 
potatoes, plant very early; for late ones, about 
the longest day of the year,” is now “blight- 
THE SOIL FOR POTATOES. 
The “maximum yield” can be obtained from 
a deep, rich, sandy loam, but the “maximum 
weight” froma similar, somewhat clayey loam, 
The subsoil must be well drained, naturally 
or artificially. If you have choice of soils, 
select a deep, rich, well-drained, slightly-slop¬ 
ing, sandy loam. If you have only a heavy, 
cold clay, do not undertake the growing of 
potatoes on a lar^e scale; but if you must 
plant them on such soil, drain it by plowing 
in narrow lands with open dead-furrows. The 
best crops of potatoes are raised on a wheat 
or rye stubble, following clover or grass sod; 
but this succession would not fit the common 
rotation, and is most suitable to potato spe¬ 
cialists. The next best preceding crop is corn, 
following clover or grass sod. The third choice 
would be sod. 
THE CHOICE OF VARIETIES 
depends partly upon the demands of each per¬ 
son’s market, partly upon the adaptation of 
the different varieties to his soil. Plant on a 
large scale only those varieties which com¬ 
mand a sure sale at good prices iu markets 
accessible to you. Among these varieties, 
confine yourself to those which you know will 
do well in your soil, and grow smaller test- 
plots of other promising sorts. All things con¬ 
sidered, there is probably as much money in 
the Beauty of Hebron as in any other oue va¬ 
riety; Clarke’s No. 1 is praised by most grow¬ 
ers; the White Elephant will certainly out- 
yield either of them; but its shape (and in 
some soils its quality) is not so sure; the Snow¬ 
flake sells well, but is not a large cropper; 
Early Ohio varies here, in Ohio, from the best 
to the utterly worthless. Nothing but expe¬ 
rience with the different varieties on your own 
soil, can safely guide you.—[Good.— Eds.] 
SEED POTATOES. 
Like tends to produce like: plant therefore, 
such potatoes as you want to harvest. It is 
now proved that if this rule is enforced for a 
period of years, there is a gradual improve¬ 
ment of the stock both in yield and quality. 
Two selections are necessary; some'hills are 
much better than those around them; their 
tops are vigorous and bushy, but not over¬ 
grown or spreading; the tubers are numerous 
and smooth, in shape true to the form of va¬ 
riety, and uniformly large. This is the sort 
you want next year, therefore select your seed 
from these hills, as far as they will go. For 
this purpose you must be with the men when 
they dig the crop, aud require them to keep 
tubers from the hills separate until you have 
time to inspect them. From the yield of these 
best plants, and from others if necessary, se¬ 
lect only those tubers which are large (not 
extra large, as that would involve waste) with 
the true shape of the variety, and having vig¬ 
orous eyes. They should be got at once into 
the cellar and left to sweat in boxes, and theu 
be stored away, covered from light and air; 
undisturbed till planting time, unless they are 
rotting. It pays to handle seed potatoes care¬ 
fully, and it will pay any large grower to 
plant a seed-patch with extra-select seed, and 
so obtain a pedigreed strain fitted to his soil. 
MANURE. 
Potatoes need a very rich soil, but are in¬ 
jured by rank stable manure. Select a soil 
made rich by years of thorough tillage aud fer¬ 
tilization. Such soil will not require more 
ttian 12 cubic yards of good compost, or from 
300 to 500 pounds of chemical fertilizers, to 
the acre. Thinner soils will need a more lib¬ 
eral dressing. Compost is best applied iu Fall 
or early Winter. If spread ou unplowed 
ground either in Fall or Spring, it should be 
thoroughly harrowed into the surface soil be¬ 
fore plowing, so that when turned over it will 
not lie in a thin layer under the furrow, but 
bo mixed with it. If unrotted stable stuff 
must be used, then by all means spread it in 
the Fall or early Winter, and harrow in 
Spring till not a lump is left. Commercial 
fertilizers are good unless the soil is already 
very rich, when they often seem to do no good 
at all. They should be mixed with not less 
than an equal bulk of fine manure or earth, 
several weeks before they are to be used, and 
applied as a top-dressing and thoroughly har¬ 
rowed iu, after Spring plowing. If it is pre¬ 
ferred to fertilize in the drill, the fertilizer 
should be spread upon the soil which is to be 
used (n covering; the horse-hoe can be so ar¬ 
ranged as to mix the fertilizer with the soil 
and cover at oue operation. This saves the 
labor of covering the seed with earth to pro¬ 
tect it from contact with the fertilizer. Never 
put such fertilizers below the seed. 
FLOWING AND HARROWING. 
Let these be according to the soil and cir¬ 
cumstances. Plow from eight to ten inches 
PRIZE ESSAY.— Class IX. 
by e.—ITS VALUE AS A GRAIN, FOR ITS STRAW 
AS A GREEN MANURE, FOR SOILING, 
ETC., ETC. 
In many parts of the country, rye is a very 
important and paying crop. Of course, land 
which will produce 20 bushels of wheat, or 50 
bushels of corn to the acre, should not be sown 
to rye. In New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois 
and Wisconsin, some of the New England and 
several of the Southern aud Northwestern 
States, there are many acres of land which 
will not produce paying crops of wheat or 
corn, and upon these lands rye often proves a 
valuable crop; while very poor land will grow 
rye, still no crop pays better for manure. If a 
farmer has land suitable for rye, which is lo¬ 
cated near a paper mill, or where freight is 
low, it will pay to raise this crop, as the straw 
often brings as much as the grain. A farm¬ 
er who needs manure on his land—and what 
farmer does not?—may raise rye, have it 
ground, aud feed the bran to his stock with 
cut rye straw, thus furnishing an excellent 
feed for horses and cows. The writer has 
wintered horses on bran aud cut rye straw, 
with only a small quantity of hay, and the 
cost was less than half what it would have 
been if they had been wintered on oats or corn, 
and they came out lively and in good flesh in 
the Spring. 
Asa green manure, rye is very valuable to 
farmers who have not as much barn-yard 
manure as the farm needs. The cheapest way 
to enrich land is to sow rye and turu it under 
while green. A farmer can better afford to 
turn under rye than to draw barn-yard man¬ 
ure two miles, if it is given to him. The time 
of the man and team will cost more than the 
plowing under of rye, aud the carted manure 
will not restore the land half as effectually. 
Land that is too poor for clover will grow rye, 
and the rye plowed down cau be followed with 
clover. 
As a soiling crop, rye has no equal for feed¬ 
ing in the Spring and early Summer; aud the 
sooner our farmers come to understand that 
on high-priced land soiling is the true sys¬ 
tem and the cheapest for feeding cattle, the 
better; and rye is the best Crop for early feed. 
It should be sown in this latitude in Septem¬ 
ber. aud will then be ready for use in May 
or June. It. will not be mauy years before our 
dairymen will abandon the plan of letting 
cows hunt for feed over the farm. Not only 
can we get much more from an acre by mow¬ 
ing than cattle can get by grazing, but when 
the cattle are kept in stable aud yard and 
furnished with plenty of litter, the manure 
made will pay for the extra labor. 
I need not say that rye, mixed with wheat 
or corn, or both, makes excellent bread; and 
every farmer who raises rye should have it 
ground and save the flour for his owu use, 
while he feeds the bran to his stock. 
Rye, then, is a valuable crop for farmers 
whose land will grow it, but will not produce 
a paving crop of corn or wheat; it is valuable 
for the straw to sell or to feed. As a green 
rnauure, for worn-out land, it has no equal. 
As a soiling crop, it is the best for early feed. 
As food for the family, it is nearly as good as 
wheat, and for stock it equals corn. To con¬ 
clude: if your land is rich, don't raise rye un¬ 
less as a soiling crop; if the land is poor or 
worn out, turn under a crop of rye. 
In many localities and on many farms there 
is always a certain portion not quite as good 
as the rest, where it will pay to raise a crop 
of rye. Often, if laud is beginning to fail a 
little with wheat or corn, it is well to sow rye. 
A farmer must exercise judgment in this as 
in all other matters, but he should not lie 
afraid of rye, nor allow his prejudices to pre¬ 
vent his trying it. J. J. m. 
NOTES ON PRIZE ESSAY NO. IV 
THE BEST CATTLE FOR THE DAIRY AND THE 
It was very gratifying to see in the Rural 
of April 5 that the “ Prize Essay” judges had 
awarded Prize No. IV. to a person with whom 
I agree as to the breed deserving the great 
honor of being the “best for the dairy and the 
shambles.” 
Mr. Muncey’s practical and concise manner 
of bringing the breeds down to a common- 
sense base of comparison—that of dollars and 
cents—is clear and forcible. He has been 
modest in his expressions concerning the 
superiority of the Holland breed, called 
Friesian, which would appear much greater 
could the result of an actual comparison, 
animal for animal, be-known. 
The article is so well written that I should 
not take exception to it, did it not contain 
statements the accuracy of which personal 
experience compels me to question. Mr. 
Muncey bases some of his estimates on the 
statement that “twenty-two Friesian cows 
reported by Prof. Lehman, of the Agricul¬ 
tural Academy of Eldina, averaged 10,000 
pounds; and 190 averaged ','.374 pounds in 365 
days,” As there is no place called Eldina, 
Mr. M. probably means Eldena. Then Prof. 
Lehman never made any experiment with 
cattle at Eldena, and could not with 190, as 
stated, for there is not accommodation at the 
academy stables for even half that number, 
and all the cattle here are stall-fed. 
Let me state that (having attended the 
Royal Agricultural Academy of Eldena, 
which is a branch of the University of Greifs- 
wald, Pommerania, in Prussia, situated near 
the Baltic, about 150 miles north of Berlin) 
the cattle which Mr. M. calls Friesian are 
there known as Hollanders, and with pro¬ 
priety, as they come from Holland. Should 
they be called Friesian, the name would as ap¬ 
propriately apply to the small cattle of East 
Friesland, which is in Germany, as to the large 
breed found in West Friesland, a province in 
the north of Holland. 
Mr. Muncey alludes to experiments made 
in Wurtumburg, at Weiden, reported by Mr. 
Klippart. There is no mention of this place 
in the report , but of Weil, which is a short dis¬ 
tance west of Stuttgart, where extensive com¬ 
parisons of different breeds were made. Here 
also at Weil the names Hollander and Hol¬ 
lander Race are used, aud the name Friesian is 
not once used as syuouymous with Hollander 
or Hollander cow. 
J.Van der Breggen Azu, said to be the largest 
land owner and cheese-maker in Scotland, is a 
I Dutchman, and lives in Holland, which his own 
RURAL PRIZE ESSAY.—No. 10. 
HOW TO PRODUCE A MAXIMUM YIELD OF 
POTATOES. 
A. C. BARROWS 
I take the words “maximum yield” to refer 
only to marketable potatoes. But the small, 
knotty, scabby, soggy, pronged tubers are 
“potatoes” as well, aud I shall use the phrase 
“ maximum weight,” to include the total crop, 
good, bail, and indifferent. The difference 
between the two may amount to a quarter of 
the crop. 
WHEN TO PLANT. 
luOhio, aud wherever the “blight” prevails, 
the crop, must be made before the middle of 
