1906. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
SWEET POTATOES FROM CUTTINGS 
A short time ago I noticed in The R. 
N.-Y. an article in regard to sweet pota¬ 
toes. It may be that some of your readers 
are not aware that by planting pieces of 
vine (without roots) they can raise sweet 
potatoes just as well as by setting the 
rooted plants. I have raised them this 
way for several years. 1 he first time I 
tried it my plants began to vine before 
I was ready to set them, so I pinched 
off pieces of vine about a foot long, 
pinched off two or three of the lower 
leaves, and set a few plants at the end of 
one row; they did finely, and the next 
year I tried it again with the same re¬ 
sult; the next year I set one whole row 
with the ends of vines, and they produced 
as well as those plants that had roots to 
them. Last year my son, who is in 
Florida, sent me 130 pieces of sweet po¬ 
tato vines with neither roots nor leaves; 
they were about eight inches long and 
simply tied in little bundles and put in a 
pasteboard box, not even wrapped in 
mgist paper; some of them were some¬ 
what shriveled when they arrived, and as 
they had been mailed on Tuesday and I 
did not receive them until Saturday, the 
prospect for sweet potatoes from them 
was not very flattering; however, I set 
the larger end of them in water for a 
few minutes, then covered them with 
dirt and shaded them until sundown, 
when I set them out. They were slower 
in starting than those I set a few days 
later that had roots, but they all grew 
execpt 10, and produced fine potatoes, 
although on account of the hard ground 
some of them were not very smooth, but 
they were as tender as Irish potatoes, and 
very sweet. They did not grow as large 
as they do in Florida, but most of them 
were of good size, some of them weighing 
1^4 pound each. When they first began 
to vine, I thought from their appear¬ 
ance they were die Red Bermudas, but as 
they grew larger I saw a difference, and 
when I dug them I found them more of a 
buff color, and my son wrote me since 
that they call them the Biscayne yam. 
Ohio. s. c - cordon. 
Facts About Hen Manure. 
R. J., Connecticut. —We are keeping 75 to 
100 hens, and planting one to two acres to 
garden truck. We shall have about 1,000 
pounds of dry hen manure. I propose to 
grind and broadcast before harrowing. Does 
it need any other chemical to mix with it, 
and if so, what and how much? 
E. L. C., Centre Moreland, Pa. —1 have 
been saving hen manure by gathering the 
droppings once in two weeks and placing in 
a barrel a layer of sifted coal ashes and a 
layer of the droppings till the barrel was full. 
The other day I noticed steam rising from the 
barrel and the manure was hot. When 
stirred it up it was very fine and light and 
seemed thoroughly pulverized. Has it lost 
Its fertilizing properties by such fermenta¬ 
tion? If so. what can I do in the future 
to avoid it? In using it for corn should it he 
placed in bottom of hill or on top, after the 
corn is covered? How much for each hill? 
Ans.— Hen manure ferments readily. 
It differs from other manure in the fact 
that liquids and solids are voided together. 
The most likely thing to be lost in fermen¬ 
tation is the ammonia. 1 he smell of 
this is well known, and you can tell 
whether it is passing away from the bar¬ 
rel. This method of fermenting in a heap 
is used by some large poultry keepers who 
do not care to crush and grind the dry 
manure. They keep the manure spread 
out dry and thin until needed for use. 
Then it is put in large piles, where it 
grows hot and ferments—breaking up into 
a fine mass which can be readily spread. 
There seems to be some loss in this pro¬ 
cess, and we would rather , avoid it until 
just before ready for use. The best way 
to prevent it is to keep the manure dry 
or use chemicals. Land plaster, dry saw¬ 
dust, or even road dust will dry out the 
manure. It may be cleaned out frequently 
and spread evenly under a shed or in a 
room where it will keep dry. Kainit, a 
potash salt, can be used under the perches. 
It prevents fermentation and also adds pot¬ 
ash to the manure. We would use some 
drying material and keep the manure well 
spread out in a dry place until Spring. If 
185 
the manure is made fine we would scatter 
a large handful over and around the lull 
after planting and work it in with cultiva¬ 
tor and hoe. 
We have been asked to give Mr. John¬ 
son’s method of handling hen manure. 
He uses plaster under the roosts, cleans 
out often and puts the manure in a shed. 
In the Spring it is in hard chunks. These 
are crushed by putting them on a cement 
floor and striking them with a heavy spade. 
The crushed manure is sifted through a 
fine sieve and mixed about as follows: 
400 pounds fine hen manure, 100 pounds 
nitrate of soda, 300 pounds acid phosphate, 
100 pounds muriate of potash, and 100 
nounds of plaster. The latter is added 
not for its plant food, but because it makes 
a dry mixture easily spread. 1 his makes 
a fair fertilizer for fruit and vegetables. 
On noor land it would be well to use more 
nitrate of soda. Hen manure is not as rich 
as guano, and lacks potash and phosphoric 
acid. _ 
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Times have changed and markets have changed. Not only have 
new crops been introduced, but nearly all crops are required earlier in 
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old-fashioned coarse manure. While manure will never go out of 
fashion as a fertilizer, yet for quick crops it must be supplemented by 
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