1913. 
6 
THE RURAI> NSW-YORKEK 
CAUSES OF POTATO SCAB. 
B. F. M., T Vest Virginia .—Like some of 
your readers I am having 1 trouble with 
potato scab whore I have fertilized ex¬ 
tensively with barn-yard manure and wood 
ashes. I have 2% acres on which I put 
from two to three hundred loads of manure 
every year and I can grow an abundance 
of lettuce, mustard, onions, cabbage, etc., 
but potatoes will grow scabby, and turnips 
for the last two years have not done well. 
Ans. —The general report from farm¬ 
ers in the East is that manure and ashes 
are likely to increase potato scab. When 
manure is put on a strong clover sod 
the damage is not so great because the 
green clover fermenting in the soil is 
likely to make it a little acid. Scab is 
a germ disease, and when the germs are 
in the soil or on the seed anything like 
lime or manure which will give an alka¬ 
line effect is likely to increase the growth 
of the scab. The use of sulphur helps, 
but most potato growers in the East are 
giving up the use of manure on the 
potato crop. It seems better practice to 
use the manure on corn and use a cover 
crop to follow the corn. Plow this un¬ 
der in Spring and use a good dressing 
of some high-grade potato fertilizer. It 
pays also to soak the potato seed in a 
solution of formalin before planting. 
KAINIT FOR SWEET POTATOES. 
E. J., Rosenhagn, N. J .—I have a neigh¬ 
bor who has raised some fine sweet pota¬ 
toes, the best round here, and he says he 
used nothing but kainit. Can it be done? 
Will Trucker, Jr., tell us? 
Ans. —E. J. asks whether it is possible 
to raise a crop of sweet potatoes with 
kainit alone. It is possible under certain 
conditions, but it would not be advisable 
for the average grower to depend on 
kainit alone to bring out a full crop of 
sweets, or, in fact, to use it at all. A 
sandy soil that is well supplied with 
thoroughly decayed vegetable matter may 
have enough nitrogen and phosphoric 
acid in it to supply the required amount 
of those two elements necessary for a 
full yield of sweets, and yet it might 
be deficient in potash. In that case an 
application of kainit which is valuable 
for the potash it contains might do the 
trick, provided it was properly applied. 
Experiments have shown that most of 
our sandy soils are deficient in available 
potash, and tables of analyses show that 
the sweet potato is rich in potash, there¬ 
fore that one element should be supplied 
in larger amounts perhaps than any other 
one element. At any rate, the experience 
of growers throughout this section bear 
out the fact that potash is badly needed, 
and materially increases the yield, but 
they fight shy of kainit. Many tons of 
it have been used. We have used it, but 
I believe on the whole it has done far 
more harm than good. Unless applied 
evenly and long before it is needed by 
the crop it will burn the plants fear¬ 
fully, and I have known fields where it 
was impossible to secure a stand where 
kainit had been applied just previous to 
setting the plants. 
The loss from burning caused by late 
applications of kainit has resulted in so 
much injury that growers have about 
abandoned its use and have substituted 
sulphate or muriate of potash. The 
preference is given to sulphate. This is 
distributed in the Spring long enough 
ahead so as to have at least one rain 
on it before the ridges are made for the 
plants. When applied in this manner 
there is no loss by burning and a de¬ 
cided increase in the yield due to its use. 
If kainit is used it should, by all means, 
be put on in the Fall or else just as soon 
in the Spring as you can get on the 
ground. When applied just before plants 
are set loss by burning is almost sure 
to result. The sweet potato does not re¬ 
spond nearly as well to an application 
of kainit made in the Fall as it does 
to one of sulphate or muriate of potash 
applied in the Spring, in quantities that 
give equal amounts of actual potash, and 
there is a question in the minds of many 
as to vvhether much of the potash in the 
kainit is not lost by leaching during the 
late Fall and early Spring rains. The 
rains wash out the injurious salts, and 
it seems much of the actual potash or 
plant food goes with it. Then, too, 
many growers believe that stem rot is 
more serious where kainit has been used. 
My own observations confirm that be¬ 
lief. From any viewpoint kainit is not 
a desirable carrier for supplying sweet 
potatoes with potash. The others are 
better. The method of fertilizing for 
sweets followed in this section is to 
apply 10 to 15 tons of manure to the 
acre, one year ahead, on the ground in¬ 
tended for sweets this year. Corn, can¬ 
taloupes or melons are good crops to 
precede sweets, and sometimes a clover 
sod supplements the manure. The year 
sweets are grown no manure is used, 
but 200 to 400 pounds of sulphate or 
muriate of potash is applied broadcast 
a week or so before planting time and 
harrowed in. Then the field is marked 
out in rows and a regular, complete 
sweet potato fertilizer, analyzing 2-8-10 
or thereabouts, is distributed in these 
rows at the rate of 600 to 1,000 pounds 
to the acre. Growers desire a rain on 
this to wash out any of the chlorides or 
injurious salts that may be in it, and 
then ridges are made and plants set. 
No other fertilizer is given during the 
season. trucker, jr. 
THE CORN HUSKING GAME. 
The following 1 is taken from an Iowa 
paper. Of course we do not husk corn in 
this way East of the lakes. .Here we get 
down to it and get off the husks in a sort 
of retail way. But this is the way they 
do it out West where the corn of commerce 
comes from. 
“Corn husking is a national game which 
begins about the time baseball peters out 
and continues until the blizzerd season. It 
produces the same distressing results to 
lingers as baseball does, but as a dividend 
producer it is about a thousand times more 
effective. 
“Corn husking is not a college diversion, 
but has sent thousands of boys to college 
and has given them their sinewy wrists 
with which to grasp the flying halfback 
by the spinal column and check him in his 
mad career. Corn husking cannot be 
played in a stadium or amphitheatre. It 
requires as much room as golf. A 40-acre 
lot will keep 100 golfers busy for years, 
but a 100-acre field will only last two ex¬ 
pert huskers a few weeks. 
“Corn husking is the most valuable ex¬ 
ercise in America. Hundreds of throbbing 
geniuses have spent their lives in trying 
to invent a hiachine which will deftly re¬ 
move an ear of corn from its garments and 
toss it into a wagon, but the onlv entirely 
reliable machine of this sort is tiie farmer 
boy who rises at 4 a. m. and grasps 100 
bushels of corn ears firmly between his 
aching thumb and forefinger before the 
sun goes down. The rules of corn husk¬ 
ing are very simple. The busker arms him¬ 
self with a pair of large mittens with 
armored thumbs and follows a wagon 
across a cornfield, denuding two rows of 
stalks as he goes and trying to keep the 
horses from eating themselves to death 
while waiting for him. The wagon keeps 
moving all day long and if the busker is 
beside it at night he wins. If he doesn't 
the wagon wins. It is a very exciting 
game, but not suitable for young athletes 
with fragile, manicured fingers. 
“There are many husking experts who 
can keep three ears in the air right along 
and can hurl 200 bushels of corn into a 
wagon in 10 hours, only missing it oc¬ 
casionally. A man who can do this is 
more useful to humanity than the man 
who can hurl 200 spitballs per day before 
shouting thousands or the daredevil who 
can travel 200 miles an hour on a motor¬ 
cycle in the last stage of hydrophobia. 
-There are 4.000.000,000 bushels of corn 
to be undressed and hurled in this country 
each Fall, and only a few million red¬ 
necked and horny fingered farmer boys 
stand between us and ruin.—George Fitch.” 
As small as your note book and 
tells the story better. 
Pictures, 
ltt *2% 
inches. 
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A FARMER’S GARDEN 
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Ask your dealer about them and write us 
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•'Iron Age Farm and Garden 
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BATEMAN M’F’GCO. 
Box 1022 Grenloch.N. J. 
Get My Low Price On The 
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HERCULES MFG. COMPANY. 
330 21st Street, Centerville, Iowa. 
MODE*, 
1893 
Big 
Game 
REPEATING RIFLES 
The Special Smokeless Steel barrel, rifled deep on the 
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The mechanism is direct-acting, strong, simple and perfectly adjusted, 
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CAHOON SEED SOWER 
Has the only discharger scientifically constructed to scatter seed evenly in front 
of operator and not against his person. Years of use all over the world prove 
this to be the simplest, most accurate and durable broadcast sower made. Sows 
all grain or grass seed. Made entirely of steel, iron, brass and heavy can¬ 
vas. Wide breastplate makes it the easiest to carry. Needed on every 
farm. Some alfalfa ranches have a dozen. Complete directions in English, 
French, German and Spanish. Sent prepaid in the U. S. for $4.00 if dealer 
will not supply you. Order today, for it is warranted to give satisfaction. 
“ Even seeding brings good reaping.” 
GOODELL COMPANY, 14 Main Street, Antrim, N. H. 
100 pounds of an 
ordinary Fertilizer 
(testing 2-8-2) 
FILLER. 
,28 LBS 
ER 
NITRATE OF SODA 
12 LBS 
ACID 
PHOSPUATjg 
56 LBS 
Both of these are 
called “complete** 
fertilizers, but they 
are very different. 
Well-balanced 
Fertilizer 
(testing 2-8-10) 
fer- 
MURIATE OF POTASH 4- I-3sH 
If you prefer ready-mixed 
tilizers, insist on 
Potash in them to raise the crop 
as well as to raise the price. Crops 
,_ yj - rirr 
FILLER. 
LBS 
NITRATE OF SODA. 
12 LBS 
ACID 
PHOSPHATE^ 
.56 LBa 
enough 
'J4URIAXE OF 
POTASH 
20 LBS 
contain more than three times as much Potash as phosphoric acid. 
It was found years ago that the composition 
of the crop is not a sure guide to the most 
profitable fertilizer, but it does not take a very 
smart man to figure out that a well-balanceil 
fertilizer should contain at least us much Potash 
as Phosphoric Acid. Insist on having it so. 
If you do not find the brand you want, make 
one by adding enough Potash to make it right. 
l'o increase the Potash 4 34 per cent, (for 
cotton and grain), add one bag Muriate of 
Potash per ton of fertilizer; to increase it 
9 per cent, (truck, potatoes, tobacco, corn, 
etc.), add two bags Sulphate or Muriate 
per ton. 
Talk to your dealer and ask him to carry Potash in 
stock or order it for you. It will pay you both, for 
GERMAN 
Monadnock Block, Chicago, ill. 
Potash Pays 
For particulars and prices write to 
KALI WORKS, Inc., 42 Broadway, New York 
Bank & Trust Bldg., Savannah, Ga, Whitney Bank Bldg., New Orleans, La. 
Empire Bldg., Atlanta, Ga. 
