Vol. LVIII. No. 2591. 
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER;,23, 1899. 
*l«PERiYEAR. 
POTATO GROWING IN KANSAS. 
STRUGGLING WITH HARD CONDITIONS. 
Methods and Tools That Help Out. 
Part I. 
POOR POTATO SOIL.—The soil here is unfit for 
potatoes, as there is no sand in it, and it is underlaid 
by a watertight clay. While potatoes must have a 
large amount of water to do well, yet water is their 
greatest enemy, as if soil is not naturally under¬ 
drained by a stratum of gravel or sand, it must be 
either tile-drained or surface-drained, as standing 
water in this hot climate will cause rot. To surface- 
drain properly, the land should be sloping enough to 
drain, either to the north or south, and then ridge 
cultivation should be practiced. The rows must run 
with the slope, and only north and south rows do well 
here, which is explained by our periodical winds blow¬ 
ing the vines, on an east and 
west row, all to the north side 
of the row, and then the hot 
sun gets at the ridge, and 
dries it out and greens many, 
greatly reducing the yield. 
SEED AND CUTTING — 
Small seed has always given 
me the best yield whenever 
the season was favorable and 
the soil rich. Whenever the 
season is poor and the soil 
poor, large seed cut to one 
eye always yields the best. 
Small seed comes up quicker, 
but the tops from large seed 
cut to one eye die first. The 
reason small seed gives the 
best yield when conditions 
are favorable, is because there 
are four to six stalks in the 
hill, and a rich soil with rea¬ 
sonable rains causes them to 
outyiekl one or two stalks in 
a hill. Seed almost always 
brings $1 per bushel here in 
the Spring, and as machine- 
cut seed takes two bushels per 
acre more than hand-cut, 
there is a saving of $2 per 
acre by hand-cutting, and $1 
will pay for the cutting of an 
acre of seed. I can cut 80 
bushels of seed per day with 
my cutter, and have made a 
record of a bushel in three 
minutes several times. I also 
much prefer machine-cut seed 
to use in the Aspinwall plant¬ 
er. Cut seed is stored in 200 
crates, and I have kept it five weeks without harm. 
FITTING THE GROUND.—I plow with a riding 
gang plow, and harrow with a riding roller harrow 
called the Imperial Pulverizer, that harrows, smooths, 
rolls and subpacks all at one job. I use the Aspin¬ 
wall planter, dropping 13 to 15 inches in the row, and 
rows 42 inches apart. I use wide rows because I have 
1,600-pound horses, and wish to use a two-horse 
cultivator, dig without skipping every other row; 
above all, I follow the digger with the lister the next 
year, and plant corn, and rows 42 inches apart are as 
narrow as can be succesful. In my soil, I prefer drag 
bars on the planter to cover with, to any disk attach¬ 
ment. Three times over with the smoothing harrow 
before the potatoes are up, are always calculated on, 
two horses drawing the harrow, while a third horse 
in the middle is ridden by the driver. This early 
working is far better than later use of the hoe. 
WEEDING AND CULTIVATING.—When the tops 
are about three to four inches tall, and on a bright 
sunny day, with high barometer, the weeder is run 
over the field. I take the big 1,200-pound steel roller, 
take out the middle drum, set the other two drums 
one foot apart, and attach weeder behind, a simple 
lever enabling me to lift the weeder at will; two 
large horses pull the outfit, and I ride on the roller, 
turning at the end as easily as with a cultivator. The 
roller literally planes the surface between the rows 
for 36 inches without any injury to the tops in the 
rows, and this gives the weeder the best possible 
chance to get in its work. 
I used to practice level cultivation with Planet Jr., 
tools, and sowed millet when I laid the crop by, to 
protect the crop till cool weather; but since 3,000 to 
4,000 workmen have come in at the big smelters here, 
the early demand has caused me to dig and sell early, 
and I have to use ridge cultivation to protect the crop 
against rot, in place of the millet. The riding two- 
horse eight-tooth cultivator is used twice, drawing 
the earth towards the row each time, the fenders 
being used the first time. Up to now, every particle of 
the work has been done with riding machinery, 
which scores a point or two ahead of the method used 
at Hope Farm. 
HOW LAID BY.—Just after the vines settle and al¬ 
most touch between the rows, the crop is laid by with 
a 14-inch lister, with side rods on to pick up and hold 
up the vines out of the way while the earth is being 
thrown toward the rows. These rods are exactly 
similar to the rods used on the double celery-hiller 
made by the Planet Jr. people, and they do the work 
perfectly. A stiff-shanked rolling cutter is used on 
the beam, and the little subsoiler runs four inches 
below the lister, breaking up the plow pan, stopping 
evaporation in case of drought, and preventing wash¬ 
ing in case of excessive wet. Three large horses 
draw this rig, and the work done is simply wonder¬ 
ful. Every year for the past 30 years, we have had 
a periodical flood of eight to ten inches of rainfall the 
last week in June, followed by a four to six-weeks’ 
drought. This plan of laying by the crop is the best 
protection against this flood, and the after baking of 
the soil. This flood annually rots 90 per cent of all 
the potatoes grown here, so that scarcely any one 
grows more than one or two bushels, and the man 
who successfully raises and digs a crop, is regarded 
as a freak or a wizard, and as all potatoes used must 
be shipped in, the home market is very good, ruling 
the price of the freight (15 cents per bushel) above 
Kansas City prices. 
I am located right in the midst of the largest and 
most powerful natural-gas belt on earth, where the 
rock pressure is 330 pounds 
per square inch, and this 
whole broad prairie is rapidly 
becoming a continuous manu¬ 
facturing center. Already six 
large 1,000-retort smelters are 
in operation, employing an 
army of men; a cement plant 
is being built that will turn 
out 300 car-loads of Portland 
cement daily, with another 
army of men; belt and elec¬ 
tric railroads, enormous roll¬ 
ing mills and galvanizing 
works, sulphuric acid works 
and mammoth brick plants by 
the dozen, fertilizer works 
using rock shipped from Mex¬ 
ico, glass works, etc., abound. 
So it will be seen that I have 
a good market. 
READY FOR DIGGING.— 
As my potato rows are 42 
inches apart, and the lister 
with which I lay them by is 
14 inches wide, this leaves the 
potato ridges 28 inches wide, 
six inches high, and the sub¬ 
soiler on the lister has sub¬ 
tiled the rows a distance of 
four inches in depth, which 
affords ample protection 
against our annual flood the 
last week in June, and the 
following dry spell. As soon 
as laid by, the vines cover 
over the whole row, shading 
the ridge from drought while 
they are themselves protected 
from excessive rain. As soon 
as the vines die, the ridge rows are in fine shape to 
run a digger over. 
The editor has truly said that different styles of 
potato diggers are particularly adapted to different 
soils. The Hoover digger will not work here. Only 
one style has been successful in my soil, and that is 
the right-hand pronged plow. This plow has a share 
16 inches wide, and a rolling cutter sets off two inches 
from the beam, making the furrow 18 inches wide. 
The rod moldboard throws the soil straight up and 
to one side, so that it pitches the soil end over end, 
and the potatoes and fine soil sift through the two 
sets of rods down into the bottom of the furrow, 
where a set of drag bars, placed only one inch apart, 
drag all the tubers out on top of the loose earth. The 
other diggers have been tried, but do not give very 
good satisfaction in this soil. c. j. NORTON. 
Allen Co., Kansas. 
