1899 
783 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER; 
PLOW AND FORK FOR POTATOES. THE POTATO AND THE GRASS. 
Potato digging is hard work, and generally dreaded. 
Few are strong enough to use a fork continuously, 
and many fields are too stony for its use. Diggers 
work well under the most favorable conditions, one 
under most conditions, and none in all places. Po¬ 
tato hooks are still in the majority, and their tines 
pierce one-quarter of the tubers dug with them. If 
the crust is not broken by plow or cultivator, one’s 
arms and shoulders ache before night, and the work 
drags. Potatoes, to be good keepers, fine in quality, 
and yielding well, should be planted deep, which 
makes bad work for the diggers and hard work for 
the men. 
We have fields where the only way to get them out 
is by hand, and how to get them without prodding, 
and too much extra cost, was a problem. We solved 
it by using a plow. A one-horse plow does not cut 
too deep, and a boy can handle it. A team is easily 
guided, and is needed there to draw the tubers. Tons 
of dirt and stone are pushed to one side, weeds and 
most of the tops are turned under, the narrow ridge 
is loosened, and only a quick, light motion is required 
to separate the tubers. Four men with 'hooks can dig 
over more ground than six without plowing, and will 
exert less muscle. The young Irishman digging said: 
“I have dug all ways, in Ireland and the United 
States, and this is the easiest yet!” There is no need 
to hook the loose tubers, and one can pick up on the 
clean fresh surface, very fast. The difference in 
picking nearly makes up for loss in time, and they 
are dug clean, which machines do not do. 
Fig. 289 shows how it was done. The boy plowed 
for five to dig. The men all dig on the same row; 
each has his stent, or share, marked out, and being 
separated there is no wasted time. Only 
one row lis plowed at a time, and there 
is a continued strife to see who can get 
done first. By these methods the ma¬ 
chines have no advantage except on 
large favorable areas. The long crate 
was adopted because it was found that 
spreading the hands and bringing the 
weight nearer the body, made them 
easier to handle. Anything one can do 
to save the men fatigue, increases the 
amount of work done each day. It may 
be a small difference, you think, but 
load a car of potatoes, alone, 'in one 
day, and you will feel the difference, 
and think it large if you use the square 
crate. c. e. chapman. 
Potato Notes from Michigan. 
Hope Farm Notes have interested me 
very much, because they record the ac¬ 
tual experience of both success and 
failure. Farmers always enjoy reading 
such experiences, and these notes strike 
a chord of sympathy in the breast of 
every true agriculturist. 
We dug our Carman No. 3 potatoes last week with 
a four-horse elevator digger. They averaged about 
140 bushels per acre of fine, smooth tubers. Had the 
frost held off two weeks longer the field would have 
averaged 200 bushels, I am sure; the tops were thrifty, 
and there was just rain enough, when the frost came, 
to furnish plenty of moisture. We treated our seed 
with formalin, instead of corrosive sublimate, and 
the results are far beyond our anticipations. Here¬ 
after, we shall use the formalin treatment. There is 
hardly a scabby potato to be found, and some of our 
seed last Spring was quite scabby. 
Our experience has shown us that it pays to plant 
late varieties about the last week in May, in this sec¬ 
tion of the State. We get our crop of potatoes after 
the Fall rains set in, and if we plant much earlier the 
drought shortens the crop after the potatoes begin to 
set. Our potatoes were almost entirely free from 
bugs this season, so that we spent less than one hour 
picking off the few old ones that wandered into the 
field. Last year we used the arsenite of soda, com¬ 
bined with Bordeaux Mixture, and went over the 
field twice with a two-horse homemade spraying ma¬ 
chine. Upon a two-acre plot we experimented with 
commercial fertilizers, using various combinations of 
potash, nitrate of soda, lime, etc., and will give a full 
report of this test later on. 
When digging, we use a low-down farm truck, and 
have plenty of bushel crates distributed along the 
rows. It takes 10 or 12 men to pick up as fast as our 
machine can dig, when the conditions are right. I 
dug 600 bushels in 114 day last week. We are offered 
40 cents per bushel in our local market this week, and 
prices are still advancing. We shall probably sell 
direct to customers here in Battle Creek. The crop 
in the northern counties is reported very light. I 
have recently traveled through all sections of the 
State on official business, and visited many farms, and 
find that the potato crop of Michigan will be less than 
two-thirds of an average yield. j. h. brown, 
Calhoun County, Mich. 
Does It Go Straight Through ? 
I notice what is said on page 718 about the potato 
growing around the grass. Wire grass, I assume, is 
what we call Wild rye. I do not believe any boy who 
ever studied Wild rye with a hoe can be induced to be¬ 
lieve that a root of it was guilty of standing still for a 
potato or anything else to grow around it. But how 
could a potato be entirely pierced by a stationary object? 
The growth of the tuber must be from the center out¬ 
wards. Hence the root could only penetrate to the cen¬ 
ter. Those students will also tell us that Potato beetles 
do not feed on tubers; that cows only whisk their tails 
in fly time, and never kick until they are hurt. Most 
likely they have seen Chess turn to wheat, Salt-grass to 
cat-tails, and a cow's horn grow over a gimlet in cases 
of horn-ail. E. L. S. 
Cape Cod, Mass. 
The points of rootstocks of Quick or Quack grass 
are hard and sharp, and so are those of June grass, 
and still harder are those of several wild grasses. 
With thumb and finger, I have no trouble in pushing 
into a tuber of a potato, the tip of Quick grass. In a 
number of instances, I have seen tubers entirely 
pierced by these underground stems (not true roots), 
and in one case I found two tubers in one hill that 
had been piierced by rootstocks of June grass. I have 
a bulb an inch in diameter, and another a little 
smaller, that were grown in the greenhouse. A stem 
of June grass passes through each. I have another 
specimen of a wild lily in which the stem below 
ground is pierced by the rootstock of Quack grass, 
and the rootstock of Quack grass an inch and a half 
previous to entering the lily had been pierced by a 
rootstock of June grass. A rather firm root of a 
Polygonum, somewhat like a smartweed, was pierced 
by Quack grass, and a stem of sassafras, about 15 
inches h'i£h, was pierced by June grass; both of these 
DIGGING POTATOES BY HAND. Fig. 289. 
are in the herbarium of this college. I have never ex¬ 
perimented on this subject, and hardly thought it 
necessary, after seeing the specimens above referred 
to. Of course these pierced plants made some growth 
after they were pierced. w. j. heal. 
Michigan Ag’l College. 
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING. 
A Checkered Career for a Check. 
About two months ago one of my neighbors noticed 
a respectably-dressed middle-aged man walking along 
the highway. He stopped and asked whether there 
was a farm for sale Sn the vicinity. He said that he 
had often passed through the place, and thought he 
would like to live in the neighborhood. The stranger 
stated that farming had always been his business, 
and he thought, while it was not so remunerative, 
perhaps, as some other occupations, that it was safe, 
and he would like to continue it. During the conver¬ 
sation the first man thought of a farm another neigh¬ 
bor had purchased at a mortgage sale for a little 
speculation, and described the property to the trav¬ 
eler, who seemed very much interested. He finally 
said that he would like to look at it, and he was di¬ 
rected to the owner. While conversing with the 
owner, the tenant who was working the farm drove 
up on some errand. The stranger proposed going 
back with the tenant, to look the farm over, and as 
he got in the wagon said to the owner, “I should like 
your address, as I may wish to correspond with you.'’ 
The owner of the farm, taking out of his pocket a 
small memorandum, wrote his name and address, and 
handed it to the man, and they drove off to look the 
farm over. 
The owner heard nothing from the stranger until a 
short time ago, when his bankers notified him that a 
check had been sent from some local bank in Ohio to 
them for collection. The owner of the farm at once 
pronounced the check a forgery, but that was not the 
end, for in a few days another bank in the same city 
produced another check, like the first, which was also 
pronounced a forgery. The amount in all is about 
$500. The stranger an no way tried to practice any 
sharp game during his conversation while in the 
vicinity, yet it appears that it was money he was 
after. I send this to The R. N.-Y., thinking, perhaps, 
your readers may be warned against writing their ad¬ 
dresses for strangers. a. d. baker. 
Seneca County, N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—This lis a somewhat new game to obtain a 
signature. It is a safe rule never, under any circum¬ 
stance, to write your name and give the writing to a 
stranger. 
BEES AND GRAPES. 
Some Facts Against Theories. 
In The R. N.-Y. for October 28, under the caption Is 
the Honey Bee a Benefactor? I read: “The experts of 
the Department of Agriculture, a few years ago, car¬ 
ried on some exhaustive (?) experiments, using every 
conceivable device, to induce the bees to puncture 
grape skins, with the result that in no case did the 
bees ever puncture the tenderest-skinned varieties.” 
Three years ago the bees were playing havoc with 
my Concord grapes, and I was harvesting them as 
fast as I could, leaving, for the time, a trellis of Dia¬ 
mond grapes, to absorb a little more sunshine, be¬ 
cause neither bird, wasp, nor bee had yet injured the 
beautiful clusters. One morning, in passing the trel¬ 
lis, I saw the clusters thickly covered on one side by 
bees; I limmediately cut the clusters, and close exam¬ 
ination showed an abraded surface on the side from 
which I had brushed the bees, and mi¬ 
nute particles of juice were sparkling 
in places, as they exuded. Placing the 
clusters in the storeroom, in two or 
three hours that side of every cluster on 
which the bees had been, had turned 
brown, and in three days, every dis¬ 
colored grape was spoiled. Some sea¬ 
sons bees will not injure the skins of 
any grapes, because they do not suit 
their taste, and some varieties are never 
molested; there are varieties, however, 
of which, in good seasons, with bees 
handy, the grower will never see a 
ripened bunch, because the bees will 
commence to eat them as soon as the 
grapes commence to ripen, and keep 
“eternally at it” as fast as one is fit to 
eat. 
Because the scientific devices failed to 
induce the bees to eat, is no proof what¬ 
ever; probably the bees did not consider 
the grapes offered them fit to eat. One 
fact is worth more than ever so much 
scientific deduction, and all the asser¬ 
tion, scientific or otherwise, that bees 
do not get through the skins of grapes, because 
they cannot, is of very small importance to me, 
when I know positively that they can and that 
they do, and that they sometimes destroy large 
amounts of otherwise perfect fruit. What then? 
Even so, the little busy wonders do a thousand times 
more good than harm, and even when they are feast¬ 
ing on my grapes I will not harm them. Perhaps 
they have more right to them than I have; who 
knows? At any rate, they are welcome to all they 
can find. w 
Green County, Wis. 
Ip we are to judge from the various reports made by 
the different State dairy and food departments, the plain 
people have as much difficulty in getting pure food as in 
securing pure politics. 
The National Provisioner says that on account of the 
rise in tin plate, can-makers have increased prices. 
Doubtless there will be a rise in all canned goods, al¬ 
though no definite action by the packers is expected until 
their general convention in February. 
A fumigating official of the sanitary department in a 
southern city is reported as having become suddenly bald, 
from exposure to fumes of formaldehyde gas. We have 
not yet noted any sudden increase of baldness among 
our progressive nurserymen, but this occurrence seems 
to suggest such a possibility. 
The Atchison Globe says that one observing farmer 
accounts for the high price of eggs on the ground that 
more people are raising fancy poultry. He says that the 
new kinds of poultry are so highbred and lazy that they 
have to be lifted to their roosts at night, and they are 
too lazy to lay eggs. The old common kind, without 
feathered pants or pedigree, laid eggs early and late. 
An association devoted to German beet-sugar interests 
has offered two prizes, one of $2,500 and the other of $2,00(1 
for beet harvesters. The requirements are that the 
machine shall be easily guided, requiring the attention 
of one person only, and that it shall not call for excessive 
traction power. Our Yankee inventors might well turn 
their thoughts to this. 
