Vnl. LX III. No. 2820. 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 13, 1904. 
$1 PER YEAR. 
A PENNSYLVANIA POTATO CROP 
Good Seed, Good Care, Good Crop. 
The picture on this page is from a photograph taken 
in the field of 8. D. Yost, Luzerne Co., Pa. The yield 
was 400 bushels per acre, and Mr. Yost has this to 
say about it: 
“The variety was Sir Walter Raleigh. I planted 
this field June 28-29, cultivated three times, sprayed 
once in August with copper sulphate and lime (Bor¬ 
deaux), harvested the crop October 30-31. I attribute 
the making of the tubers to the Stockbridge potato 
manure, and the saving of them to the one applica¬ 
tion of Bordeaux Mixture. Six rows I left unsprayed 
and the result was they blighted, and a great many 
rotted. Although I saved the above crop with one 
spraying I do not advise risking it with one applica¬ 
tion; two or three are better. The above crop of po¬ 
tatoes was raised within three-fourths of a mile of 
the Cross Creek Coal Company’s coal deposits in Lu¬ 
zerne County. The way I 
prepared my Bordeaux 
Mixture for potatoes (1 
prefer stock solution), was 
as follows: I put 12 gal¬ 
lons of water in a barrel, 
put in a burlap sack 20 
pounds copper sulphate, 
and suspend it in the wa¬ 
ter over night. In the 
morning the copper is dis¬ 
solved ready for use. 
Weigh out 20 pounds of 
the best fresh stone lime 
and slake it slowly, but 
do not drown it. Alter it 
is well slaked add to it in 
the barrel 18 gallons of 
water and strain through 
cheesecloth. This gives 
enough of the solution for 
about four barrels of 50 
gallons each. Put four 
gallons of the copper solu¬ 
tion and six gallons of the 
lime solution in the spray¬ 
er barrel, fill the barrel 
with water and it is ready 
for business. If you keep 
a strainer over the spray¬ 
er barrel and pour both 
solutions through it it will 
clean the mixture thor¬ 
oughly from sediment and 
will not clog the nozzle of the sprayer. The four bar¬ 
rels of Bordeaux Mixture that I used on the above 1 
acre, one application in August, cost me my work and 
20 pounds copper sulphate, $1.80, 20 pounds lime, 15 
cents; total, $1.95.” 
KEEPING MANURE IN PITS. 
Regarding the hauling out of manure when fresh I 
would say don’t; it may save a little time when time 
is worth more by the practice of cleaning it away as 
last as it accumulates. But to my knowledge it is 
like taking the bread out of the oven when half 
baked; the half-baked bread is hard digesting and 
does not give its full feeding value to you when eat¬ 
ing it. Fresh manure is only half finished, and it can¬ 
not feed the crop properly. I clean out my pit in the 
1 all whenever the ground is ready to receive it. Pre¬ 
serve manure before using it. A good way to do this 
is to have a pit dug into the ground in the most con¬ 
venient place for stable doors, so it will be easy for 
the barn boys to empty into it. This pit should be 
two feet deep and as long and wide as the number of 
animals require to hold all the manure of one year’s 
gathering including all kinds of animals, except poul¬ 
try. It should all be mixed and put in layers, one 
wheelbarrow full close to the other. When one layer 
is completed if you have a good-sized strawstack 
spread as much straw over it as you think you can 
spare and after this proceed again with another layer 
and more straw and so on, keeping top level all the 
time, never heap it up. Make bottom of pit perfectly 
level, lower the three outer feet 10 to 12 inches all 
along to gather liquid. (See Fig. 46.) Do not pile any 
manure in this space, but build it up in a straight line 
alongside, and whenever there is enough water in 
this ditch have a handy scoop shovel and send it back 
up over the whole surface. If after the Winter sea¬ 
son is over and your stock is in pasture your straw- 
stack has not all disappeared, use the remainder to 
incorporate in manure by starting at one end, fork¬ 
ing it over clear down to bottom, putting straw in 
between as you go along. After reaching the other 
end have enough straw left to cover the whole surface 
a good foot thick, keeping on putting over it the wa¬ 
ter that might gather in the ditch during Summer. 
The foot of straw put on top will prevent it from dry¬ 
ing out, never leaving it without covering. It is not 
necessary to build roof over the manure pile as some 
farmers do. The above method is the best way to 
use manure to get the best of it that I know, it will 
come out in Fall able to feed the crops. You do not 
need to put it on very thick but spread very evenly 
and fine, and plow it under at once and it will pay 
extra labor very well. Of course those who have a 
gravelly and porous location for their pit will have 
to resort to some means to make it water tight. A 
good heavy red clay bottom paved with stone is a 
good one. Fresh manure put on land whether level 
or not and left uncovered is simply wasted, because it 
contains very little fertilizing element and the same 
is lost in the air through the Spring 
Wisconsin. f. peterson. 
R. N.-Y.—We must remember that Mr. Peterson, is 
a market gardener. The crops he raises grow rapidly 
and need the most soluble forms of plant food. We 
have often explained how manure contains nitrogen 
in three forms, organic, ammonia and in the form of 
nitrates—which latter form is the one in which the 
plants can feed on the nitrogen. Now in ordinary 
fresh cow manure, supposing there were 10 pounds of 
nitrogen in a ton, the division into these three forms 
would be about as follows: One hundred and twenty 
ounces organic nitrogen, 36 ounces ammonia, four 
ounces nitrates. If put out on the field at once the 
small amount of nitrates would be ready to feed the 
plant at once, the ammonia later and the organic ni¬ 
trogen still later. What happens in the pit? Chemi¬ 
cal changes go on which break up the organic nitro¬ 
gen first into ammonia and then into nitrates, so that 
when this rotted manure is hauled out it is much like 
using nitrate of soda on the land. Th'e pit is a factory 
or a bakery, as Mr. Peterson puts it. We should not 
care to haul this manure in the Fall. 
A TALK ABOUT LIGHTNING RODS. 
The plan to erect lightning rods on poles standing 
on either side of a build¬ 
ing is an innovation whicn 
is not likely to become 
popular. In the case of 
dwelling houses, especial¬ 
ly, it would be objected to 
on the ground of appear¬ 
ances. It would certainly 
detract from the neat ap¬ 
pearance of a building to 
have a rigging of this kind 
around its outline. Again 
the expense would be 
much greater. In the case 
of large, tall buildings it 
would require high poles 
or towers to carry the rods 
an effective distance above 
the roof. A rod well fast¬ 
ened to a building is as 
permanent as the building 
itself, whereas poles would 
mly stand erect for a lim¬ 
ited period. As to effi¬ 
ciency, it is doubtful if it 
would be equal to the old 
way, although the whole 
matter of lightning rods 
and their utility is involv¬ 
ed in some uncertainty. 
Insurance companies make 
no account of them as pro¬ 
tectors against fire by 
lightning, and they should 
know what their effects are in practice. Some assert 
that they are a positive menace to a building in the 
time of a shower. It is certain that very few are now 
put up. the notoriety given to them by unscrupulous 
peddlers having cast disrepute on this means of pro¬ 
tection from fire. A rod improperly constructed is 
worse than useless (and there are a great many such), 
but when well grounded and with two or three sharp 
bright points well above the roof it will undoubtedly 
give good protection from electrical discharges in 
time of showers. 
It is said by the best authorities that a rod will 
only give sure protection (and it is presumed that it 
is well built) for a lateral distance twice the height 
of the point above the roof. With this point in con- 
si deration we would have to reject the new plan men¬ 
tioned, unless it is assumed that the wire passing 
over the building will intercept the descending bolt. 
But the efficiency of a good lightning rod lies in the 
sharp bright points extending above the building, and 
acting in a manner continuously and silently to draw 
the electricity from the atmosphere, relieving the 
electrical tension in that immediate vicinity. It is a 
-1 
A PENNSYLVANIA POTATO FIELD. YIELD FOUR HUNDRED BUSHELS. Fig. 45. 
