RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1209 ^ 
TKe Business Side of the Early Potato Crop 
S elling prospects.— now that the field of 
early Cobblers is in flower and the heavens have 
favored us with the hoped-for rain, we are beginning 
to consider the problem of selling. Over to the 
south tall smokestacks and new time whistles remind 
us that conditions are not the same as they were, 
and that they may yet be still different. We read 
in today's paper of the new outbreak of a switch¬ 
men’s strike in one of our nearby cities. Ever since 
the first part of June the grocers have shown in¬ 
terest In the progress of the crop, waving a friendly 
salute as they drive by the field in which they find 
ns working. We hope that this spirit will survive 
after they learn our price on new potatoes, especially 
as one of them snorted at us over the telephone last 
rear. There is no selling organization in our section, 
possibly because no great amount of earlies are 
produced here; sentiment is in favor of cabbage as 
being easier handled without help. Our little 40- 
acre farm is counterpart of dozens of others along 
the highway, each with liis own ideas as to a fair 
price and methods of disposing of liis 
crop- most of us selling for what we are 
offered. If we are cut too close we 
take it out in gloomy reflections on the 
way home. We are going it blind, and 
are paying the price of not having 
studied our market. Most of us are 
Farm Bureau members, but after we 
put out our card we forget to ask for 
the information the association would so 
gladly give us, and are like a man arriv¬ 
ing at a dark house without a light, 
who is liable to be shot for a burglar. 
CROP VALUES.—If we knew ex¬ 
actly how much a crop had cost us in 
blood and money we would not hand it 
over for a mere pittance, llow is a 
grocer or wholesale man to know what 
beans are worth if the man who grows 
them cannot tell him? His dealings 
with business men have taught him to 
purchase as cheaply as possible, and 
he knows that if his competitor up the 
street is buying potatoes cheaply he 
also must do so or close up his store. 
Before we can quarrel with the man 
who buys our produce we should take 
ourselves strictly to account for not 
knowing what the thing cost us any¬ 
how. We must strike a match and 
explain our presence in the dark house. 
ESTIMATING THE YIELD.—So I 
have been across fields with Senior 
Partner, getting a conservative esti¬ 
mate of our prospective bushels, now 
about the size of hen’s eggs. Counting 
the hills in several rows of plants, we 
find an average per row for the entire 
30-acre field, and multiply by the num¬ 
ber of rows, to get the number of hills. 
To be cautious we will only allow a pound 
to the hill. I suppose those Long Island 
growers smile as they read this, but we 
are not using fertilizer at the rate of a 
ton to the acre, just a thousand pounds 
t—8—4 with plowed-under young 
rye. so we do not. expect 300 bushels per 
acre. Rut we will see. Last Summer 
w< raked off the vines and weeds, male- 
h.g a compost heap, which melted down 
into good manure. We set fire to the 
dry top and sides, and it smoldered for days. While 
we cannot name the resulting mixture, it did won¬ 
derful work on the sand knolls. 
PROSPECTIVE PRICES.—We wish that It were 
Possible to take our estimate of this year’s expenses 
as the basis of this season’s potato places; we do not 
enjoy this false position of taking all wo can get. 
A stable price thus set. would be below the present 
market, but just as remunerative in the end, and a 
deal more respectable. In the city over there pota¬ 
toes are bought from the New York dealer at $10.75 
her barrel, in addition to this lie charges 50 cents 
i’or handling. Another 50 cents goes for freight, and 
Lie buyer here who delivers them to the grocers has 
t" take another dollar. So in Central New York 
this morning a barrel of potatoes is worth $12.75, 
$2 more than it is quoted on the New York mar- 
hut. The Southern grower controls his market to an 
extent, because he Is better organized. Southern 
shippers enlarge upon his piglveadedness when writ¬ 
ing North to explain why they have not been able to 
ship as per agreement. They say that he is too dead 
slow to be described in words; they can never get 
him to dig until they give him a price, and then he 
doesn’t really make haste, but seems to lie waiting 
for something. “I doubt if I can make you under¬ 
stand,” said one writer, “what we are up against in 
dealing with these farmers.” In this ease the price 
quoted for delivery was below the market, which 
explains their reluctance. 
THE MIDDLEMAN.—It will be two weeks before 
we can offer for sale the big shiny white tubers that 
our salesman needs for liis trade. Meanwhile lie is 
looking over the situation as he goes about bis daily 
business. Forty miles south of here lies a section 
which produces early potatoes in quantity very 
cheaply, hitting the market some two or three weeks 
later. There is a grocer owning a line of stores who 
last year brought these potatoes here by truck to 
exasperate his brother grocers by retailing at a shade 
less. His men are always urging us to get our pota- 
Cattlc Power for the Mower. Fi </. 358. (See Pane 1210) 
about the rate of 250 bushels per day, or as many 
as we can dig and bag. His charge for the services 
includes the cost of his gasoline and all his expenses 
for help, his time, etc., and has never exceeded 25 
cents on a bushel. He is not the man who put up 
prices on the consumei*. It is the speed with which 
he handles these potatoes that keeps down the costs. 
The grocers seem to buy more willingly from him 
than from us. He has time to make them realize 
that they are getting the worth of their ihoney. 
They have no quarrel with him, and they haven’t the 
time to roll out here to quarrel with us, but a great 
many of them feel, as the man on the ’phone said, 
that we have taken all the profit and left nothing 
for them. Of course this is mere buying talk, for 
they should still be able to undersell the man who 
orders from the South. But they are grieved to find 
that tlie day when a farmer with a big crop means 
a big rake-off is past. It all depends now upon the 
farmer who gets his profits. 
THE CONSUMER AS A PURCHASER.—Have 
we forgotten the consumer? Not at all. 
On my desk lies an advertisement 
ready for mailing which will be printed 
in all the local papers hereabouts. It 
runs like this: 
“This is digging time at Quaker Ridge 
1 otato I* arm. Come and fill your baskets 
at wholesale prices.” 
Then there are cards printed in large 
shiny black letters, which show from 
every corner within two miles where 
new potatoes may be found. Whether 
or not tlie consumer heeds is left to liis 
own discretion. 
LABOR.—We are never quite free 
from tlie nightmare of scarce labor. 
It is the first thought in the morning 
and the last at night. Thirty boys and 
girls attend the little brick school up 
on the hill, and we are offering them 
five cents a bushel to pick up these 
potatoes. This will include a fried 
cake and a glass of milk in the after¬ 
noon if I am not mistaken in good 
brindle Grace. They will bring their 
dinners. It is not yet discovered how 
many are ambitious enough to pick up 
potatoes in half-bushel baskets all day 
in the hot sun. but this is a neighbor¬ 
hood where none of us is too fine to 
work, and we feel that they are better 
able than clerks and bookkeepers from 
tlie city, as lias been suggested. 
Seneca Co., N. Y. mbs. f. h. uxgkr. 
The Ox in Simile Harness. Fin. 351). (bee Pane 1210) 
toes out early, as the prices are on the drop. We 
wonder sometimes just what line of talk lie gives 
these growers to induce them to sell at half the 
market price. Did they know that potatoes were as 
scarce as lien's teeth up here in Central New York, 
or did they do it from patriotism? We do not know, 
but would like very much to learn. 
SELLING THE CROP.—Our salesman is tlie city 
wholesale produce man. At this time he is trading 
in watermelons and Southern fruits, and as he passes 
along he takes orders for early potatoes dug on July 
15. Our selling plan is his idea. There will not be 
many potatoes fit to dig on tlie 15th of July, but 
they will serve to reflect the quality of his article, 
and he will distribute them in small lots to each 
customer. They will be a novelty as tlie first home¬ 
grown potatoes of the season, and with each bag 
goes a printed article about tlie history of their 
growers. When extensive digging really starts he 
is able to place orders rapidly, and can use them at 
Buckwheat and Rye for 
Potatoes 
I have an old meadow that has become 
infested with daisies and paint brush, 
which has practically destroyed the grass. 
I thought to turn it down, sow to buck¬ 
wheat. after buckwheat is off sow to rye, 
and next Spring turn the rye under with 
potatoes, planting tlie potatoes in the bot¬ 
tom ot* every third furrow. Some of my 
neighbors tell me 1 will be making a 
mistake, and will have a poor crop of 
potatoes. r. p. it. 
Pennsylvania. 
W E doubt if the plan, just as you 
outline it, will satisfy you. 
Buckwheat or rye will produce a small 
or a fair crop oti an old meadow 
simply turned over and cultivated. If 
you take off the buckwheat grain there would be 
little left for the potatoes. You can plow this old 
meadow and put on half a ton of limestone to the 
acre, and about 400 pounds of acid phosphate. Then 
seed buckwheat alone, or a mixture of buckwheat, 
rye and Alsike clover. We have used this mixture, 
and iu a wet season obtained a good crop of buck¬ 
wheat. After that grain was taken off the rye and 
clover came on and made a fair growth through the 
Fall. In the Spring they both start up vigorously. 
This plan of seeding saves tlie second plowing or 
disking, which would be needed to seed rye alone. 
Most people make tlie mistake of letting rye grow 
too long in the Spring before turning it under. Thus 
tlie rye becomes too hard and does not act well in 
tlie soil. Where it is possible tlie best way is to 
chop the rye up with a disk or cutaway when it is 
about two feet high, and then plow it under. This 
puts ir in far better shape. Your plan of plowing 
under large rye and planting potatoes every third 
