1912. 
THE RURAB NEW-YORKER 
367 
STARTING SWEET POTATO PLANTS. 
IF. H. W.j FederaWburg, Md .—Would 
Prof. Massey of Maryland tell me how to 
grow sweet potato plants, what time of year 
to set out in field, how much and what kind 
of fertilizer to use, and which is the best 
kind for yield and market? 
Ans. —To get good sweet potato 
plants you need first good sound seed 
potatoes. Then I have greatly simpli¬ 
fied the getting of the plants. I make 
no hotbed, but bed them in a layer of 
clean sand in a cold frame. Then cover 
with two inches of sand and water well 
with tepid water, put on the sashes and 
keep them closed all the time till the 
sprouts begin to show. Then air must 
be given in sunny weather daily, and 
if the bed gets dry water with tepid 
water. Start the bed about the last of 
March, and you will get good plants as 
early as'it is safe to set them out. Grow¬ 
ing in sand they make strong roots and 
are more healthy than in a manure- 
heated bed. Some growers in Dela¬ 
ware use beds with flues under them to 
give heat, and I saw one where the 
owner has put a hot water boiler in a 
pit and run the heating pipes through 
the soil. It looked to me like an ef¬ 
fort to heat all outdoors, and I told 
him he had better put a greenhouse over 
the bed. To make a fire-heated bed it 
is always better to make an excavation 
the size of the whole bed and build a 
furnace at one end and carry the flue 
through. Then put a floor over on 
which the bedding material is placed 
and you will have a hot-air chamber 
under the whole bed, while if the flue 
is run through the soil you will have 
an overheated streak in the soil that 
will do harm. But I can get plants as 
early as needed in the plain cold frame 
under glass and in clean sand, and I 
can get more healthy plants than in a 
manure-heated bed. Sweet potato plants 
should not be set in the field until there 
is no longer danger from frost. You 
will seldom have any frost to hurt in 
May, and May is early enough to set 
them. For a xertilizer mixture make the 
following: 400 pounds of 16 per cent 
acid phosphate, 100 pounds of nitrate of 
soda and 50 pounds of high-grade sul¬ 
phate of potash an acre. Run the fur¬ 
rows shallow and put in the fertilizer 
and throw a furrow over from each side. 
Flatten these r'dges a little and set 
the plants 16 inches apart in the rows. 
For the northern market plant the Big 
Stem Jersey or the Gold Skin. 
w. F. MASSEY. 
DELAWARE SWEET POTATOES. 
I came here from Vermont 25 years ago 
and have been in the sweet potato business 
on a small scale since. At that time there 
were but few sweets grown for the city 
market here, no storage house In this vicin¬ 
ity. Now there are four storage houses 
near our railroad station, holding thousands 
of baskets of as fine sweets as are grown 
In the United States, equalling the famous 
Jersey sweets. The cost of growing an acre 
of sweets varies under conditions. The 
large growers who use all the labor-saving 
machinery can grow them cheaper than the 
small farmers. As many of my inquiries 
come from the small farmers, I will give 
the cost of the small farmers as near as I 
can. 
We usually use half a ton of fertilizer, 
running from $25 to $32 per ton, to the 
acre; cost of fertilizer, $14; average cost 
of sweet potato sprouts, 8,000, 75 cents 
per 1,000, $6; labor, $12; total, $32. The 
yield of best growers will average 150 
bushels of No. 1 sweets, and about 30 
bushels No. 2, bedding roots or used for 
canning, for which there is a ready sale, 
besides the roots which are used for food 
for stock. Roots sell for 10 cents a bushel. 
No. 2 or canning potatoes sold this season 
for 32 cents per bushel. No. 1 are worth 
now $1.27 per bushel at station here. They 
are higher this year than an average year 
An average price for one year with an¬ 
other would run from 90 cents to a dollar. 
This price is received by growers who 
study their business, store their sweets 
and take advantage of the prices in the 
markets. The prices at the storage house, 
sweets delivered right from the field, 
brought last Fall, about the best No. l’s, 
60 cents a bushel. When sweets are stored 
for late market there is the cost of stor¬ 
age and shrink to come out of the profit. 
We pay here seven cents per bushel, or as 
received here four cents per basket holding 
five-eighths of a bushel. The shrink in 
storage with me last season was 20 per 
cent, that would leave 120 bushels at sell¬ 
ing price to-day $1.27, $151 for the No. 1 
potatoes. The bedding or canning potatoes 
and roots are worth $10, at a low esti¬ 
mate. The yield as given here is the crop 
of sweet potato growers who give their 
attention to and study the business and 
make the growing of sweets a specialty. 
They are a crop that must not be neglected. 
The growing of sweets is just adapted to 
the Eastern and New England farmers who 
are used to the hoe, and their industry and 
frugality usually insures success. 
As to the cost of tools, teams, land, 
and so forth, 10 acres of land is plenty for 
the small farmer, which will cost him say 
on an average convenient to railroad sta¬ 
tion $100 per acre, without any buildings, 
in a good neighborhood. To work his land 
he wijl want one horse, wagons, plow, har¬ 
row and cultivator, hoes and transplanting 
tools. One can usually get time on part 
of what he pays for his land by paying 
the legal interest. In Sussex County, Dela¬ 
ware, not over 10 per cent of the soil is 
adapted to growing No. 1 sweet potatoes. 
Decide where you want to go, and go> right 
there and visit the sweet potato growers; 
they will be glad to advise you, and study 
their land where they grow their sweets, 
and when you buy, buy the same kind of 
land. Fig. 87, page 260, shows some of 
these fine sweet potatoes. a. a. davis. 
Delaware. 
Limb With Corn. —Here is another ex¬ 
perience with lime used in connection with 
corn. We have a piece of ground, about 
two acres, on which we put 35 bushels to 
the acre. Our neighbors said we could 
not raise corn on our ground. The first sea¬ 
son we had 160 bushels, that was the result 
of using lime, and this year we are going to 
try it in heavy truck. It gave us good 
satisfaction by putting a small pinch of fer¬ 
tilizer in the hill. We have a light sandy 
loam, high ground and very dry all season. 
Try it once. w. t. 
Seaville, N. J. 
Keep Track of the Farm Tractor.— 
Much is to be expected of the farm tractor. 
It is a success on level land free from ob¬ 
structions. Who has used it on hilly, stony 
lands? It would be interesting, and it is 
important, to collect data on this subject 
so that more rapid progress toward perfec¬ 
tion may be made. We ought to know if 
the air-cooled motor, and if kerosene as a 
fuel for motors, are successful for farm 
work. I have used an automobile with air¬ 
cooled engine for six years, and would uso 
no other. May we not hear from some of 
your readers on these points also? 
Westchester Co., N. Y. w. c. deming. 
A FREAK SWEET POTATO. Fig. 129 . 
No-Rim-Cut Tires—10% Oversize 
Adopted by 127 Car Makers 
And by Some 200,000 Users 
The claims made by tire makers can never settle the tire 
question. 
The makers of cars and the users of cars— the men who 
buy tires —form the final tribunal. 
These men, in overwhelming numbers, have decided on 
Goodyear No-Rim-Cut tires . They have done this after 
years of experience. 
No-Rim-Cut tires now far outsell any other tire, and the 
demand is fast increasing. 
23 Per Cent Here 
Statistics show that 23 per cent'of all 
ruined clincher tires are rim-cut. 
Clincher tires are the old-type tires— 
the hooked-base tires—which No-Rim- 
Cut tires are displacing. 
All that ruin—all that worry when a 
tire runs flat—is saved by No-Rim-Cut 
tires. 
25 Per Cent Here 
No-Rim-Cut tires, because of extra 
flare, are 10 per cent over the rated size. 
They actually average 16.7 per cent 
oversize, in cubic capacity, compared 
with the five leading makes of clinchers. 
But say only 10 per cent. 
That means 10 per cent more air—10 
per cent added carrying capacity. It 
saves the blowouts due to overloading. 
And 10 per cent oversize, under 
average conditions, adds 25 percent to 
the tire mileage. 
No Extra Cost 
When we had smaller factory capac¬ 
ity, these patented tires cost one-fifth 
Last year’s sale exceeded the previous 12 years put to¬ 
gether. This year’s sale, up to this writing, is running three 
times last. 
Over 900,000 have been used to date, on perhaps 200,000 
cars. 
And 127 leading motor car makers have this year con¬ 
tracted for Goodyear tires. 
When 200,000 motorists reach a certain decision, don’t 
you know they can’t be wrong? 
The 13-Year Tire 
We have built automobile tires for 
13 years, every year better and better. 
To make actual comparisons, we 
have tire testing machines, where four 
tires at a time are worn out under all 
road conditions. 
There we compare formulas, fabrics 
and methods. There we compare rival 
tires with our own. We have done 
that for 13 years. And the final result 
is the Goodyear tire of today. 
These final tires, made so they can’t 
rim-cut—made 10 per cent oversize— 
are what you get in Goodyear No-Rim- 
Cut tires. 
We Control Them 
There are imitations of No-Rim-Cut 
tires, made to avoid our patents. Our Tire 
Book explains why they can’t serve the 
purpose. 
Don’t judge this new-type tire by experi¬ 
ments. When you abandon the clincher, 
get the tried-out tire. Get Goodyear No- 
Rim-Cut tires. 
Our 1912 Tire Book — based on 13 
years spent in tire making — is filled 
with facts you should know. Ask us to 
mail it to you. 
more than other standard tires. Now, 
with a capacity of 3,800 tires daily, 
they cost but an equal price. 
Tires that can’t rim-cut cost the same 
as tires that do. Oversize tires cost the 
same as skimpy tires. 
You are offered that choice at an 
equal price. Which tire will you take? 
Goodyear No-Rim-Cut Tire 
Ordinary Clincher Tire 
Both tires are fitted to the same rim—the standard rim for quick-detachable tires. 
The removable rim flanges are simply reversed in changing from one to the other. 
No-Rim Cut Tires 
With or Without Non-Skid Treads 
THE GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY, AKRON, OHIO 
Branches and Agencies in 103 Principal Cities We Make All Kinds of Rubber Tires, Tire Accessories and Repair Outfits 
Main Canadian Office, Toronto, Ont. Canadian Factory, Bowmanville, Ont. (562) 
