That the very large crop of 1,400 bushels to 
the acre—or rather the limited crop at the 
rate of 1.400 bushels, which is a somewhat dif¬ 
ferent thing—should provoke the comments 
of contemporary journals, that, they should 
doubt the statement of the Rural, and con¬ 
sider it well-nigh impossible would naturally 
be expected. To me it was no surprise or even 
matter of doubt, and if the writers had been 
familiar with the details of agricultural pro¬ 
gress, they would have known it. had been 
done before—half a century ago— before fer¬ 
tilizers were known or, at least, previous to 
their having been used,or even before a strictly 
scientific work ou agriculture had been pub¬ 
lished here. And what has been accomplished 
can be done again. 
One of the early experiments in potato cul¬ 
ture, was made by the late S. O. Perkins Esq. 
of Brookline, Mass., an amateur cultivator, 
who was one of the first to introduce the cul¬ 
ture of the grape under glass, around Boston, 
and whose successful growth of this delicious 
fruit greatly accelerated the introduction of 
cold-house grape culture. His experiments 
with the potato ware made in 1818, and the 
result is detailed by him iu a letter to the late 
Hou. Josiaii Quincy, afterwards president of 
Harvard College, and published iu that, valua 
ble work, the Transactions of the Massachu¬ 
setts Society for the Promotion of Agriculture. 
Mr. Perkins hail three potatoes weighing IS 
ouuces which he planted on the i-'Ttli of April, 
1818. They were cut into 94 sets, each set con¬ 
taining one, two, or three eyes (This is plainly 
an oversight on Mr. Hovcy’s part—Eds.] and 
were planted in the drills, each 89 feet long, * 
oue half about 15 inches, and the other half 
about seven inches distant from each other; 
the rows or drills were two and a half feet 
apart. The ground was good and the soil 
deep, but he put no manure upon it this sea¬ 
son. Mr. Perkins writes as follows: “On the 
7th of October, the potatoes were taken out of 
the grotmd and measured iu my presence, 
heaping them as long*- as they would lie one 
on the other, and I found there were about 
four and one-half bushels. With a view, 
however, to ascertain the precise increase 1 
weighed the whole parcel, after separating 
those which were too small for the table, and 
found I had 250 pounds of large,handsome po¬ 
tatoes fit for table use.and 18 pounds of small 
ones, making an aggregate of 27.8 pounds from 
18nz. of Bead. This would give upwards of 8.- 
149 bushels for every 18 bushels of seed employ¬ 
ed,which is about the average quantity planted 
on an acre of ground.” The ground employed 
was 97 square feet; estimating the bushel at 
00 pounds, the crop was at the rate of about 
1,400 bushels an acre. 
Mr. Perkins closes his interesting account 
as follows, which is well worth remembering; 
“It must be confessed that the great increase 
from so small a quantity of seed cannot be ex¬ 
pected in field culture. The soil is neither so 
deep nor so loose as iu a garden continually 
worked over with the spade, and of course the 
fibrous roots cannot extend themselves with 
so much facility, but 1 believe great improve¬ 
ment may be made in field cultivation as well 
as in gardens. When the soil is pretty deep, 
and well broken up, great saving iu the labor, 
which is now bestowed iu hilling potatoes, 
might be made. When the ground is hoed to 
destroy weeds, a little earth drawn to the hills 
to protect the roots from drought will hr bet¬ 
ter than to heap on toads of earth, as Is the 
custom amoug us. I have practised this mode 
with success,” 
Mr. Perkins was not the first to recommend 
level culture: it was advocated 50 years be¬ 
fore his tune. The late Thomas Andrew 
Knight, President of the Royal Horticultural 
Society of London, devoted much time to the 
cultivation of the potato and its improvement 
by the production of numerous seedlings, and 
many valuable papers were contributed to its 
Journal, from time to time. Tho last of them 
was in 1888. when he gave an account, of an ex¬ 
periment with an acre of his seedlings, the pro¬ 
duct of which was at the rate of 9W bushels, 
of 80 pounds to the bushel, per acre. Iu this 
experiment, so careful was Mr. Knight to 
have u correct estimate of the crop, that the 
two outside rows, and ends of the same, in 
the field were dug up, and only the interior 
rows subjected to measurement. Estimating 
the crop at 60 pounds per bushel, the result 
would he nearly 1,4 «mi bushels per acre. 
Had Mr. Perkins or Mr. Knight had such a 
prolific sort as the Early Rose, the product 
must have been very much larger. These are 
experiments, however, ex parte —thut is, 
at the rate per acre, like that of the Rural. 
1 now come to actual experiments on an 
exact measured acre of ground, first remark¬ 
ing that Very large crops were produced in 
Englaud, nearly a century ago: the late Sir 
Arthur Young, the eminent English writer 
speaks of 1,099 bushels as having been raised 
on an acre. 
More than half a century ago, I find results 
recorded which are well worth reading by our 
more modern cultivators. From the year 
1818 and nearly twenty years successively, t he 
Massachusetts Agricultural Society annually 
offered liberal prizes for the best yield of po¬ 
tatoes on an acre, the successful exhibitor to 
give a statement of his mode of cultivation. 
Without taking the time to hunt up all these 
experiments, which were numerous and pub¬ 
lished in the Proceedings <>f the Society, I take 
enough to show the excellent culture of the 
potato in these early days, before agriculture 
had arrived at the state we nmv find it. 
Tho report I now take is that of the year 
1888, when the committee of tho society “at¬ 
tended the duty assigned them and awarded a-s 
follows: To V\ r m. Carter, of Fitchburg in the 
County of Worcester for his crop of pota¬ 
toes, beiug m\\4 bushels to the acre, a premi¬ 
um of twenty dollars.” This exhibition was 
accompanied with the following statement of 
the crop. 
“The soil upon which the potatoes were 
raised, is a warm, deep loam sloping to the 
south-east, and for five years previous to the 
last has been grass land and mowed each year. 
The land was plowed in November, 1881, 
harrowed and cross-plowed in the month of 
May, 1882. I (hen spread 40 cart loads of 
horse manure upon the furrows and plowed 
it in, and then furrowed 2 1 feet, apart and 
planted the seed in rows or drills The seed 
was 20 bushels of the large red potato and 25 
bushels of the common blue. The planting was 
done the last of May. As soon as the tops ap¬ 
peared the land was plowed and hoed and 
when they were about 12 inches high, plowed 
and hoed again. 1 kept no minutes of the ex¬ 
pense of cultivation, and am therefore unable 
to stab- it particularly. There was no further 
labor or manure oxjiended, than as above 
stated, and no extra expense or pains were 
taken than in ordinary cases,” 
The same year among the unsuccessful 
claimants for the premium was Mr, Payson 
Williams, of Fitchburg, whose crop was 618% 
bushels on an acre. Mr. Payson, as was the 
rule, handed in his statement of cultivation 
which was similar to that of Mr. Carter and, 
without copying the same 1 give you Mr. Wil¬ 
liams’s expenses of the crop: 
KX I’F.NSEK OK CU LTIVATION OF AN ACRE OF 
POTATOES. 
TnrnfUg over Hie sward iq: day Tor one yoke 
Muni, myself and man .$ 4.1!0 
Carling on 46 loads, or 10 cords, manure. s.0O 
Plowing in d i .. .. H.ou 
Harrowing and marking out tor plowing. UX> 
Fifty tiuslieU seed at Is lid. per bushel... 
Planting, live days' work at Is .. 3.3S 
Plowing for flint lioelng half day, horse, man 
andboj .. ljOO 
First lioelng, I wo days’ work .. 1.50 
Second hoe tog, process similar. 2.50 
Harvesting the crop. 20 days' work at 76 cents per 
day.-. . i5.no 
Ox work to curt the same to cellar (very near! .. l.W) 
The proportion of the manure drawn by the crop 
I judged to he Hi per cent., say. 16.00 
$6W48 
Mr. Williams concludes his statement as 
follows: “If I recollect aright, the nine crops 
of potatoes grown by me the last 18 years, 
eight of which I believe (for I speak from 
recollection only) have drawn the society's 
premiums, have in the amount of expenses 
been quite as high as this.” His estimate of 
the value of the crop at that date, 1882, was 
that it would be a profitable one at least; say 
018 bushels, at 20 cents per bushel cash in our 
market, would be 8122,00 cents. Deduct, ex¬ 
penses, $66 88, leaving net profit of $55.77. I 
am led to inquire what would be the profit of 
such a crop iu 1887. 
Boston, Mass, 
CORN FOR THE CENTRAL WEST.— 
NO. I. 
PROFESSOR G. E. MORROW. 
The farmers of the great corn-producing 
districts of the Central West have decided that 
the dent varieties are the only ones profitable 
to them In field culture. I can readily believe 
there are many young fanners in Central Illi¬ 
nois who have never seen an ear of flint corn, 
certainly not seen it as it grew, just as 1 sup¬ 
pose there are many New England farmers to 
whom dent corn is a novelty. There is not 
much agreement as to varieties best adapted 
to cultivation, not even as to colons. The yel¬ 
low dents are most common: but there are 
large ureas in which white varieties are very 
generally grown, while many farmers prefer 
varieties of mixed colors. There arc scores of 
varieties. Mauy of them, however, closely re¬ 
semble each other. On the other hand, t here 
is lack of uniformity in samples of corn known 
by the same name—more so, apparently, than 
with flint, varieties. With almost every dent 
variety a good deal of time is required to se¬ 
lect even a score of ears which shall closely re¬ 
semble each other. It is often possible to sc 
lect ears from collections of corn of ditferent 
varieties which sliall as closely resemble each 
other as a hastily made collection of one vari¬ 
ety. Absolute uniformity' emmot be secured 
eveu by persistent selection with reference to 
a clearly defined type. Without much selec¬ 
tion, or with selection witli different types in 
miml, it is not strange there should be consid¬ 
erable variations. 
Soil and climate readily modify varieties. 
In general, as one goes from North to South 
in the dent, corn growing regions, he will find 
both stalks and ears longer arul thicker; the 
cobs and kernels longer, and flu* season of 
growth longer. Two varieties, one from the 
North, the other from the South, grown for 
years in the same neighborhood, will become 
more anil more alike, unless care be taken to 
preserve their peculiarities by continued se¬ 
lection. 
On the farms of the University of Illinois 
we have, in recent, years, tested a hundred or 
more varieties of corn. We have never found 
varieties brought from over 100 miles north 
or south so well adapted to our climate arid 
soil at first as those which have been grown 
for some years in nearly the same latitude. 
Varieties from Mississippi, Tennessee, Ken- 
lucky, even Southern Illinois, have failed to 
mature if the season was not favorable; while 
those from the North have been smaller than 
we count desirable. In all our trials we have 
found no one variety which stood out in any 
marked degree superior to all its competitors, 
AVe have found a good number that were good 
and to be commended: but none which de¬ 
mand the extravagant praise often given new 
varieties by the introducers. 
Whatever may be true with animals, I be¬ 
lieve the varieties best adapted to general cul¬ 
tivation in any locality, arc those which are 
not at cither extreme as to size or time re¬ 
quired to come to maturity. A remarkably 
early ripening variety i have always found 
small iu ear and not remarkably productive. 
The very large varieties are slow in maturity 
—unsafe, except, in seasons especially favora¬ 
ble. The terms, large and small, are to be 
considered with reference to each locality. 
The “large” vaieties of Northern Illinois 
would be criticised as too small for the south¬ 
ern portion of the State. 
Champaign Co., Ills. 
Burnt (Topics. 
THE LAWN. 
WILLIAM FALCONER. 
• _._ # 
Where the lawn has not been top-dressed 
with manure or compost rake it. over with 
iron rakes so as to remove old Crab Grass, 
moss, weeds (as Mouse-ear duckweed), sticks 
and stones. If it is bare in whole or part, or 
the grass is thin, scratch it with the rake, 
sow some Red-top Grass seed and roll firmly 
and smoothly. If the ground is poor, a heavy 
dressing of loam or compost (loam ami man¬ 
ure mixed together aud put up in a pile last 
fall) before sowing will help it greatly. 
If it has been top-dressed with manure over 
winter, now brush or spread tin* manure more 
evenly and let it stay there. But if you waut 
the lawu for « croquet or tennis ground, you 
had better rake off the roughest of the man¬ 
ure. 
Where bumps, puckers and depressions oc¬ 
cur, skin the places level and tread them firm, 
thou relay the sod aud scatter a little rich 
loam and grass seed Over the patches aud roll 
them smooth. When tho ground is moist and 
loose, as after a thaw, is an excellent time to 
pull out such weeds as mulleins, dandelions, 
docks, rape, chicory nud the like, also to pull 
or cut out plantain and white weed. Yarrow 
often is a great pest in lawns aud forms wide 
mats. Dig it out and replace with tough 
grass sod. If the lawns are carefully hand- 
weeded in April, they will look the better for 
it all summer long. 
Encourage the growth of lawn grass early 
iu the year, and feed it wejl, so that it may 
have strength to overcome the Crab Crass in 
late summer. 
In order to have a smooth sole of grass you 
must roll it well in spring, and while the 
ground is moist in summer. Iu spring 1 roll 
the lawns while the ground is quite moist and 
soft, as after a thaw, and in the large sweeps 
use a two-horse roller drawn by men, as the 
horses’ feet would sink into and cut the 
surface of the lawn, and do far more evil 
than the rolling would do good. 
Iu making new lawns unfasten the soil 
deeply; If with the spade, double dig it; if 
with the plow, subsoil it. Keep the good soil 
at the top aud the poor in the bottom. See 
that the whole patch is evenly aud well 
firmed, and the surfuee soil fine and mellow. 
Sow broadcast, and use lots of seed. I like 
Red Top and Blue Grass without any other 
mixture. Sow as early in the season as you 
can, so as to give the grass u fair start before 
warm weather and drought set in If the 
weather is windy, as it almost always is in 
March aud April, mix a good deal of damp 
saud with your grass seed, and in this way 
you can sow it, and quite evenly', in the fnee 
of a brisk wind. “ Sow thinly'—don’t sow so 
thick,” and “ Wo use too much seed,” are oft 
repeated advice. But my practice and ad¬ 
vice are the opposite. In sowing grass for 
lawns use lots of seed. 
RUMINATION. 
No. 46 is another specially useful Rural. 
In the richest, gold mine there are nuggets of 
pure metal now and then among the still val¬ 
uable but small dust. Wo cannot always have 
a “feast of fat things,"’ but the Rural does 
very often give its readers such a spread. 
“More light on the wire worm” is wanted. 
Yes, that is true; but let. those who have any¬ 
thing to say, say only what they know and 
no more than they know, as old Monti re¬ 
marked. A very great trouble is that many 
persons do not really understand what it is to 
know or think. To know is not to believe, or 
to think or breve a strong opinion. Now I 
I,-note t.lmt, wire worms have scabbed [iotatoes, 
and 1 know that when 1 used potato special 
Fertilizer, not a tuber was hurt, while where 
cow manure and poultry manure were used the 
tubers were completely disfigured and no fun¬ 
gus could be detected. 1 have put sound po¬ 
tatoes into pits with wire worms and have 
found these worms “the thousand legs,” or 
myriapods, lulus by name, actually eating in¬ 
to the tubers, and after a time—two or three 
weeks—the callus or scab formed over the 
wounds, Moreover, I have scratched tubers 
in the ground and while they were growing, 
and have found the scabs to form over the 
wounds in the skin. 
Manure is a relief against drought. Why 
not? Manure pushes on the growth of the 
plant, roots as well as foliage, and the more 
and deeper the roots are. the more able the 
plant is to gather moisture from the soil, in a 
dry time. Make the ground rich in plant food 
and the crops will resist adversity, as a strong 
man will resist, disease. 
A curious exemplification of the ancient 
fable of the citizens in consultation about the 
defences of their town against au expected 
enemy, when each man vigorously advocated 
his special product of industry: the stone cut¬ 
ter, stone; the carpenter, timber; and the tan¬ 
ner averred there was nothing like leather, was 
afforded at the first Farmer’s Institute ever 
held m the great but, laggard State ,of New 
York; where our mutual friend, S..W 001 U 
wttjd, thought sheep the best destroyers of or¬ 
chard insects and our equally respected friend 
F. D, Curtis believed swine to'he the most 
effective. “Every inuu to Jjis trade;” but I ob- * 
ject to botli of these animals, for they will 
eat bark aud injure the trees* especially the 
young ones. I would fill au orchard with 
poultry. My sneep bnfre too stroug a liking 
for bark. 
-IT . * > 
Regarding the so-called Washington $eed- 
shoo, this is a case in which a good and use¬ 
ful design aud purpose of our forefathers has 
been divided and made a pestilent nuisance; 
just as iu too many cases the funds given to 
agricultural coleges for industrial education 
have been grossly diverted from the pur¬ 
pose intended. A lawyer advises me that 
as “for every wrong there is a remedy at 
law,” a law can be found to compel the res¬ 
toration of the money so diverted to its proper 
uses. Is the Commissioner of Agriculture 
personally liable at law for delinquency in 
office for following a bud custom in prefer¬ 
ence to a good law? New and useful seeds and 
plunks by the score could be introduced; think 
what has been done by private effort of such 
men as Fortune in China and Hoggin Japan 
and it cannot be that all has been done yet,. 
Suppose some patriotic person should com¬ 
mence a suit against the Commissioner for 
violating the law, which ho clearly does, aud 
only follows a breach of it? 
Mu. Russell is right about the affection 
which lingers about trees which one plants. 
Forced to remain 899 miles from home, noth¬ 
ing occupies my time more than the trees and 
shrubs I planted years ago.und 1 am constant¬ 
ly thinking how they will look when I return. 
Free packages lor everything salable from 
the farm should be the rule, as Mr. I del l sug¬ 
gests. The obligation to return packages pre¬ 
vents many a man from buying what he 
would otherwise waut very badly. When I 
was making and sidling butter iu small pack¬ 
ages at a high price, tin* free, neat, little, 
wooden, veneer puil with a convenient handle, 
sold t he greater part of it. Indeed without 
it many purchasers could not have taken it. 
Many stores are now using neat boxes instead 
of wrap) ling paper aud iiobonlyso.luit tiea neat 
wire and wood handle onto tho twine to carry 
the box by. Farmers and fruit, growers should 
taku the hint. So many other good things 
might be noticed that I would say read this 
number over again and mark it with marginal 
references when filing it away. 
H. STEWART, 
