1912 . 
THE RURAt NEW-YORKER 
493 
UNDUG POTATOES FOR SEED. 
J. B.j Bald wins villej N. Y .—I have some 
potatoes that did not develop enough size 
last Fall to pay for digging. If picked up 
when we plow, can they be used for seed, 
not whether they will make the best seed, 
but can they be used? 
Ans.—T hey can be used provided 
they will put out strong sprouts. Try 
them. Pick them up and put in a sunny 
protected place and see if they will 
make strong, thick sprouts. If they do 
you can safely plant them, but of course 
ihtse under-sized tubers are not the 
best seed. 
THE RAG DOLL SEED TESTER. 
This practical tester is described in 
Circular No. 1, of the Iowa Station. 
Strips of sheeting eight inches wide and 
three to five feet long are used. Make 
a black pencil mark lengthwise the mid¬ 
dle of each strip. Draw cross marks at 
right angles and number the squares as 
shown in the cut. Wet the strip thor- 
RAG DOLL SEED TESTER. Fig. 176. 
oughly; put six kernels from ear No. 1 
into Square No. 1, and continue until 
filled. Then roll up and fasten loosely 
with rubber band. Place the rolls in a 
tub of water for two hours or more. 
Then empty the water and turn tub over 
rolls, bottom up, putting a board under 
the rim to provide ventilation. After 
five days the kernels should be ready 
to sprout. Unroll carefully and discard 
all ears in which the six kernels are not 
strong in germination. 
BACKYARD GARDEN NOTES. 
Liquid Manure. —Every year I start 
what I call my liquid fertilizer factory, 
and it has helped me out greatly in some 
of my efforts to coax along a crop, so I 
will describe the simple way I handle 
liquid manure. I have a number of old 
live and 10-gallon paint buckets, large kegs 
would be better if you can get them. I 
only mention the paint buckets because 
they are probably quite easy to get. I 
provide a lid or cover of some kind that 
will keep the rain out. They should be 
placed so that any possible bad smells that 
might arise from them while in use will 
not be annoying in any way. For the 
manure I use either cow or horse, prefer¬ 
ably cow manure. I fill kegs half full of 
the manure and then fill up with water; 
this should be allowed to soak for two or 
three days, when the liquid may be dipped 
off and used and more water put on. The 
liquid manure is applied to the roots of 
the plants by pouring or sprinkling on the 
soil just above them. As the soluble plant 
food in the manure is dissolved by the 
water and held by it in solution, it thus 
reaches the plant in the form of a solution 
ready for immediate use, and the plant 
gets very quick results from the applica¬ 
tion. I have used it more for celery than 
for any other crop, yet I have used it with 
much success on other crops. My first ex¬ 
perience was with a newly set bed of straw¬ 
berry plants, and I certainly had a fine 
bed of them in the Autumn. I have used 
it on radishes, lettuce and other quick 
crops, and it is available for anything that 
you wish. The material that I have used 
cost practically nothing, but if desired the 
gardener may secure a larger hogshead or 
tank, put a gate spigot near bottom of 
same, protecting the inside of the spigot 
with a fine sieve, put in solid manure and 
water the same as before, and draw off the 
liquid through the gate spigot. In this way 
you will get a richer solution, and it is 
also a little neater way to handle it. What 
the plants respond to is the food in solu¬ 
tion in the water which is within reach 
of their roots. It is certainly worth try¬ 
ing. 
Tomatoes. —Anyone with a backyard 
garden of even very modest dimensions may 
enjoy tomatoes in all their freshness if 
they wish. I plant my seed in shallow 
boxes about three inches deep, early in 
February. For this purpose it is necessary 
to bring some soil into the house and let 
it thaw out by the heater, after which I 
run it through an ash riddle to get it 
into proper shape for filling the plant 
boxes, and the seeds are covered about one- 
half inch with the soil. These seed boxes 
I put in a sunny window and it is necessary 
of course to have some heat in the room. 
If you have a hotbed the seed may be 
planted in this and need not be sown so 
early, as the heat from the bed will force 
them faster than in a room in the house. 
I have known some people to furnish the 
seed to a florist who has a greenhouse and 
he would grow the plants in the heat of 
the greenhouses for them, or you may buy 
the plants from the florist and save all this 
trouble. The method of getting the plants 
is not material. The point is that if you 
want tomatoes early you must get plants of 
early tomatoes, and the plants need to be 
well hardened off by gradual exposure to 
the outside air before they are set in the 
row in the garden. When my plants have 
set the third pair of leaves I spot them 
from the seed box into three-inch pots, 
which I put in a sunny window and coax 
along with proper watering. As these 
plants get larger and the Spring weather 
warms up I give air in midday to harden 
them up, and also some nights before they 
are set in the garden. For the tomato 
rows I open a double furrow with the plow 
and put in some well-rotted manure, and 
cover same with the plow; when the 
weather suits, which is after danger of 
frost is past, I set the plants in the rows. 
To do this, from the pots just turn the 
stalk of the plant between your fingers, 
and a slight jar will loosen the pot and 
cause the plant with the soil to drop into 
your hand, then with planting trowel make 
a hole in the row and put them right in it, 
pressing them firm. It is well to water 
them a few times unless you are fortunate 
enough to set them just before a rain when 
watering is not necessary, and the plants 
should grow right off, just as if they had 
never been moved. If instead of a rain 
you should have hot sun, it is best to 
shade them for a few days until they get 
well established and growing. I make my 
rows about two feet apart, and cultivate 
with the cultivator teeth on the wheel hoe 
until just before the plant is large enough 
to fall over of its own weight, when I put 
a stake from four to six feet long beside 
each plant and tie the plant to the stake 
with soft string. Even after this I con¬ 
tinue to cultivate about once a week, so as 
to keep a little dust mulch on the surface 
to prevent evaporation. As the vines con¬ 
tinue to grow and set tomatoes it is neces¬ 
sary to tie them up to the stakes and thus 
keep the fruit from bending the vines down, 
that vines may keep the fruit from con¬ 
tact with the soil. By this method of tying 
and staking I avoid the loss of any fruit 
by contact with the soil. Some tomato 
specialists prune the vines for more fruit, 
and some prune foliage for more perfect 
ripening of the fruit. 
This method of staking and tying has 
given me very good satisfaction and I use 
it because I can get twice as many plants 
on the same space as I could if I did not 
stake and tie. If the grower does not 
care to use the stakes he can set the plants 
in rows not less than four feet apart, un¬ 
less the soil is very light, where they might 
be crowded a little more, and from 30 
inches to 3% feet in the row is as close as 
it is safe to set them when allowed to 
run on the ground. Of course with this 
latter method you can only cultivate until 
the vines fall over and begin to spread, 
but they will probably shade the ground 
and save moisture as much as the cultiva¬ 
tion would, in which case weeds would be 
your only trouble. I also sow some seed 
in the open ground for later plants, which 
I set in June or early July. They may 
follow some earlier crop by setting between, 
if not already cut of the way. The cul¬ 
tivation is the same as for the earlier 
plants as much as conditions will allow. 
These plants will set and grow fruit un¬ 
til frost is imminent, when I pick off all 
the green fruit and lay them on papers in 
the cellar to ripen. The smaller ones may 
be used for certain green pickles and 
sauces. Green tomatoes are also available 
for tomato pies. In this way I generally 
have sliced tomatoes from early July until 
Christmas or New Years. It is necessary 
to handle these green tomatoes carefully to 
avoid bruising, which will cause decay. In 
addition to the tomatoes which are used 
during the season we also can about 50 
jars which are available until the crop 
comes again, and often we keep them from 
year to year. Of late years I have been 
confining my varieties to the purple or 
pink fleshed ones; this, of course, is only 
a matter of taste, as the bright red va¬ 
rieties are just as good in every respect 
as far as I know. For early, I have grown 
Earliest Fink or June Pink, and for gen¬ 
eral or late crops, Trucker’s Favorite, 
Dwarf Giant and Ponderosa, all of which 
are good tomatoes with a very fine flavor. 
STANTON KIRKBBIDB. 
SWEET POTATOES IN DELAWARE. 
Your recent correspondent from Dela¬ 
ware says that there is hardly more than 
10 per cent of the soils of Sussex County, 
Del., that are suited for growing first- 
class sweet potatoes. I do not know in 
what part of Delaware this writer lives, but 
I know Sussex County, and know that out¬ 
side of the black reclaimed swamp soils 
there is hardly 10 per cent of the soil of 
Sussex that is not good sweet potato soil. 
Then he talks of 150 bushels an acre, 
while good growers here can easily make 
250 bushels an acre. Lie says that the 
New Englanders are the men for that sec¬ 
tion because they are used to the hoe. Now 
here the hoe has long ago been banished 
from the sweet potato field, for a good 
sweet potato grower does not need it. It 
is too costly a tool to use where one can 
use other horse-drawn implements and do 
the work better and more economically. 
Here the growers have their own curing 
houses, and it is far better than to pay 
some one for storage. I was talking with 
a man this morning who has shipped 1400 ' 
bushels at an average of $1.50 per bushel, 
getting $1.60 for some. Then instead of 
culling out the little potatoes for bedding 
it is far better to grow potatoes especially 
for bedding. This is done by making cut¬ 
tings a yard long from the vines in the 
field and coiling the cutting around the 
hand in July and planting the whole coll 
In the hill, leaving only the tip exposed. 
These cuttings grow readily in moist soil 
and make bunches of small potatoes just 
right for bedding, and they keep far more 
easily in Winter than the potatoes from 
the early plants, and are more productive 
of sprouts. Better feed the cullings 
7°/, e pigs and grow potatoes for 
bedding. One large grower in Eastern 
Snore o f Virginia reported that on a 
turned-under sod of Crimson clover he made 
254 bushels an acre of first-class sweets 
Then I know that a hotbed is needless for 
the plants if one uses glass sashes. I bed 
in clean sand and water and put on the 
sashes and keep them close till the sprouts 
start, and then give air in sunny weather 
and attend to watering with tepid water 
and get plants as early as there is any 
need for them, by starting in late March. 
Maryland. w. p. massbt. 
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NAME. 
TOWN. 
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.STATE. 
GROW 100% POTATO CROPS 
It is the 100% crops that make the big profits. And 100% crops 
are made possible only by right cultivation. By killing the 
weeds, holding the moisture and making plenty of plant food 
available, you can grow 100% crops. 
ISOHAQl 
CULTIVATORS 
will do it. They make fields of average 
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wheel control on hillsides and rolling land, 
and their special fixed wheel cultivator 
for flat country, combine to make IRON 
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Ask your dealer to show you IRON 
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