342 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
April 23 
After this treatment I think you could follow with 
anything you might choose. n. R. pease. 
Tompkins Co., N. Y. 
I should plow the orchard early, and cultivate once 
a week until about June 1. Then sow Eariy Black 
cow peas 28 inches apart at rate of three pecks per 
acre. Cultivate twice at least. Last of September 
plow under and sow to rye at rate of two bushels per 
acre, to be plowed under the following Spring. If 200 
pounds per acre of acid phosphate are sown with cow 
peas it will be a good investment. W. a. bassett. 
Seneca Co., N. Y. 
I am of the opinion that Crimson clover would be 
the best crop to grow on that kind of soil to plow 
under, if upon the application of the litmus paper 
test, the soil does not show too much acid to grow 
the clover successfully. If the test should indicate a 
considerable deegree of acidity in the soil, an appli¬ 
cation of 1,000 pounds of lime per acre would be 
beneficial before sowing the clover or a crop of cow 
peas could be grown on that sandy soil to good ad¬ 
vantage, especially if there should be an application 
of 500 pounds per acre of rock and potash (10 and 
eight formula). s. w. wadhams. 
Monroe Co., N. Y. 
I have had but little experience with forage crops. 
I have a young orchard of pear, plum and cherry, in 
which I have been using the following crops: Crim¬ 
son clover with a little rye mixed; this I sow in 
August, then in May following I turn this under, and 
sow to buckwheat about June 1. This I turn under 
when it is in full bloom, roll it down and get it in 
good condition, and sow with Crimson clover again. 
This rotation keeps the ground covered most of the 
time and is not expensive for seed. These crops I 
think would do well on sandy land such as your cor¬ 
respondent has. There may be other crops that 
would improve the land faster, but this is good. 
Ontario Co., N. Y. e. e. van eps. 
I have a Kieffer orchard also on sand, not a sharp 
sand, but clayey, and it evidently has a good deal of 
strength to it aside from fertilizers applied. I think 
if I were intending to cover-crop it I should drill oats 
and peas, taking my chances on getting enough to add 
something by plowing under. I should do this.early 
enough to follow it with the Cow-horn turnip, or 
better still, as advised by Prof. Roberts, Cow-horn 
turnip and rape, in about equal quantities, so as to 
cover the ground with a thick mat. I am aware that 
such a sand as your correspondent probably has is 
not an ideal soil for cover-cropping, but in such a 
combination he is likely to hit some of them, and I 
take it what he wants is to add all the humus pos¬ 
sible. w. L. M’KAY. 
Geneva, N. Y. 
I do not know of any soil in western New York 
that will not grow Kieffer trees rapidly enough with¬ 
out being enriched. I have been trimming my Kieffer 
trees to-day. They are 10 years old, and have stood 
in sod for the past five or six years, and the new 
shoots (probably 100 on a tree) were from two to 
six feet in length. I know of nothing better in this 
soil and climate to grow for plowing under than 
common Red clover. It is more sure than Crimson 
clover, a better fertilizer than rye, and cheaper than 
vetch. I seeded my Bartlett and Seckel pear orchard 
last Spring to clover and Timothy, 12 quarts per acre, 
sowing with it one bushel of barley to protect the 
seeding and keep down the weeds, and secured a 
fine stand. The soil had been worked every season 
for 12 years, and had become hard and lumpy, lack¬ 
ing humus. I intend to cut the hay and mulch the 
trees for two or three years, more for the purpose ot 
improving the texture of the soil than to add fer¬ 
tility. E. C. GILLETT. 
Yates Co., N. Y . 
A MARKET GARDENER’S CROP NOTES. 
STARTING SWEET POTATOES.—In the growing 
of sweet potatoes for commercial purposes there is 
nothing more important and essential to secure a 
crop than an early and successful start in the hotbed. 
The old adage: “A thing well begun is half done,” 
holds wonderfully true here. In New Jersey sweet 
potato beds should be planted about the middle of 
April. In some sections they still use the old style 
manure bed, but in the most important potato-grow¬ 
ing parts of the State fire beds have replaced the 
other method. There are two distinct types of these 
fire beds, the hollow and the solid bed. The solid 
bed consists of a fireplace with a sufficient* amount 
of drain tile to transmit the heat over the entire bed 
space. These tiles are placed about three feet deep 
near the fireplace and gradually come nearer the sur¬ 
face the farther back they go, thus securing a uni¬ 
form heat over the whole length of bed. In the hol¬ 
low bed the whole bed space consists of a hot-air 
chamber covered with boards; the tile opening from 
the fireplace directly into this hot-air chamber, and 
extending about half the length of the bed. This 
latter type is more easily heated, but has the disad¬ 
vantage of being more susceptible to temperature 
changes, and consequently more fluctuating. But I 
think the balance of merit is with it notwithstanding. 
On the boards we put about lour inches of loamy 
sand. Now the bed is ready for the seed potatoes. 
Select nice medium-sized seed, place them in this 
sand about one bushel to 22 square feet of bed space, 
depending of course upon the size of the seed—the 
smaller the seed the less it will take—remembering 
that a fire bed requires less than an old-fashioned 
manure bed. Then spread about two inches of sand 
over the potatoes; enough to insure a good amount 
of roots. Give the bed a liberal sprinkle of ground 
fish over the top in the way of fertilizer, and rake 
in. Many overlook the fact that in fire beds the 
plants need fertilizing. Of course in the manure beds 
the manure, in addition to its function of furnishing 
heat, supplies as wel] all the fertilizer necessary, but 
we must remember that in these beds there is noth¬ 
ing whatever in the way of plant food except that 
contained in this six inches of sand below and above 
, the potatoes. Therefore, in order to stimulate a 
strong, vigorous growth of plants, we must make a 
liberal application of some quick-acting ammonia. 
HEATING THE BED.—About 24 hours before put¬ 
ting the seed in the bed start a vigorous fire and 
maintain a temperature of 90 degrees or above, but 
never let the thermometer reach over 100 degrees, 
because a temperature of more than this is exceed 5 
ingly dangerous. If the potatoes once get hot enough 
to slip the skin they will surely rot. If a tempera¬ 
ture of 90 is kept the potatoes will come up in about 
one week or a little more, and should be ready to 
transplant about the middle of May. After the plants 
are well up and nearly large enough to set in the 
field, especial care must be taken to harden them. 
DISK TURNING WEEDS UNDER. Fig. 145. 
Leave the glass off at night whenever there is not 
danger from frost; expose them to cold winds and 
rain; in short, bear in mind that the harder the 
plants in the bed, the better they will withstand 
transplanting and subsequent bad weather. 
POTATO PLANTING.—In planting white potatoes 
we are using and have used the open-furrow method; 
that is, planting in open furrows and dragging only 
sufficient soil on the seed to cover them very slightly. 
We take the covering disks off the Robbins potato 
planter and then fasten a knee-shaped block of wood 
behind, so that it will drag in the furrow made by 
the opening plow and thus push some little dirt on 
the seed. Otherwise the potatoes are planted in the 
ordinary manner. The furrow is opened to the usual 
depth, about five inches below the surface. The ad¬ 
vantage of this shallow covering over the ordinary 
method of ridging is simply that we admit more 
sunlight, thus securing a quicker sprouting of the 
seed. A white potato kept in a dark, cool place will 
not sprout until long after one exposed to the light 
and the heat. Just so the potato placed in an open 
furrow and only lightly covered, with the sun stream¬ 
ing in and warming the earth around about it, will 
sprout up far in advance of the one buried beneath a 
ridge of six inches of well-pressed soil. Moreover, 
the sprout will be stronger, mere vigorous and 
growthy. A second advantage of this method is se¬ 
cured by passing a harrow across the row just before 
the potatoes come up and filling up these open fur¬ 
rows, thereby leaving a thoroughly mellowed surface 
above the plant. No cultivation during the entire 
season can be as thorough as this one. The filling 
up of the furrows, instead of the breaking of the 
ridges, as is the case when planted in the usual w r ay, 
gives us a loose sponge of earth directly over the 
seed, which will far more successfully withstand sub¬ 
sequent dry weather. Of course if planting potatoes 
extremely early is desired, before the danger of freez¬ 
ing weather is over, judgment must be exercised as 
to the possibility of freezing the seed by this shallow 
covering. In this case the ridging must be necessary. 
TRUCK CROPS.—When desiring * to grow canta¬ 
loupes, watermelons or cucumbers for a local market 
where earliness is an important consideration, about 
the middle of April is the proper time to plant in this 
latitude. In a recent issue of The R. N.-Y. I gave an 
extensive description of our methods of securing 
earliness in this line of truck, therefore to avoid repe¬ 
tition I will refer my readers to that article. In all 
early truck crops we plant as soon as there is any 
possibility of success and then continue to plant and 
leplant until we are sure of a stand. Thus if the 
first planting is fortunate enough to have favorable 
weather, and an early start is secured, an early ma¬ 
turity will probably follow, and good and possibly 
fancy prices will be realized. If this early planting 
fails there are then other seeds in the ground ready 
to come on as soon as weather conditions permit. In 
this line of work all possible effort must be made to 
get a day or two in advance of other growers and 
thus gain the advantage of the early prices. 
New Jersey. __ _Joseph barton. 
THE USE OF A DISK PLOW, 
There has been some question about the work done 
by a disk plow, so I send pictures showing what my 
reversible disk can do. In Fig. 144 the plow was tak¬ 
ing a 14-inch furrow nine inches deep by actual 
measurement, the draft being much less than that of 
a drag-plow taking a furrow of equal width and 
depth. The soil is of heavy clay-loam. Your readers 
will see that after using such a tool, the soil is no 
longer ‘‘right side up,” as Mr. Hinman puts it on 
page 643 of last year, a statement which, to my 
knowledge, Mr. Clark never made. What he said, and 
here I’ll quote his grass circular, is that ‘‘it is 
better in taking up a grass field to cut and destroy 
the old sod before turning under. What is wanted is 
quickly to turn the sod into plant food.” For this 
kind of work the disk plow is, to my mind, the best 
tool. After killing the sod and working the land foui 
or five inches the disk plow will do the greatest 
amount of digging, lifting, stirring, nine and 10 
inches deep with the least exertion on the team and 
driver of any plow that I have ever seen, leaving the 
land true and light, and under most conditions in 
better shape than any harrow would do after a drag 
plow. Last Spring I plowed with it, for a neighbor, a 
piece of land upon which there had been potatoes the 
previous year; it was grown to weeds and the work 
done was so level and true that he planted it to 
potatoes again, without further preparations, and this 
with an Aspinwall planter. 
That the disk will ever take the place of the drag 
plow I am not willing to admit, for nothing has been 
invented that will do just what the drag plow does. 
The disk will not turn sod, or rather it will turn it 
over and over, ripping up long, snaky ribbons, which 
it will throw at times three feet from the furrow. 
But for plowing under stubble and weeds that do not 
form sod, there is nothing more economical, more 
easily handled and more quickly hitched to than the 
disk-plow; it tloes entirely away with the terrors of 
plowing, and Prof. Roberts’ “hot plowshares” need 
no longer be an idealistic phrase, the disk doing the 
work of the share so much more easily; besides it is 
reversible, doing away also with dead and back fur¬ 
rows. 
I sold a sulky plow (drag) which my 1,150-pound 
horses could not handle; they have worked day after 
day with Clark’s disk without its telling on them. 
Of course it is no easy work, for it is plowing; but 
it certainly is easier than even the common walking 
plow, taking the same amount of land. 
I was saying that it was “plowing,” I might have 
said more truly “spading”; not the spading done by 
the so-called spading harrow's, which really are only 
“chopping” harrows, but that done by hand in the old 
European w'ay; that is, a thrust into the ground, a 
prying up, a tearing off and throwing, for, alter all. 
the disk, besides being a “rolling wedge” so to speak, 
is also acting as a lever. 
Fig. 145 shows the disk plow turning under weeds 
which averaged three feet in height (alas!). The 
work was done as well as any drag plow would do it, 
only faster and more easily, as the growth of weeds 
did in no wise trouble the machine which crushed 
them down before the disk turned them under. I 
should think that it might turn under cow-pea vines 
very well. One farmer I know has turned under an 
acre of tomato vines without clogging. I have also 
used the disk in furrowing out for potatoes without 
marking. It will open a six-inch furrow, less if de¬ 
sired, throwing a continuous ridge of loose dirt al¬ 
ways on the same side of the furrows which can be 
very easily raked back into these with a hoe, one 
having to work only from one side. m. e. 
Byfield, Mass. 
