t RURAL NEW-YORKER 
579 
Large or Small Potato Seed 
The old question about the size of po¬ 
tato seed comes up this year. Some peo¬ 
ple think that a small potato will be sure 
to give a hill of small tubers; that is, 
that it will reproduce itself. That is not 
always true. The potato seed, whether 
large or small, is more likely to reproduce 
the plant from which it was taken. Seed 
taken from a large, well-developed hill 
will be likely to reproduce the yield, 
whether the seed is small or large. A 
hill of potatoes giving only two or three 
large-sized tubers would not be selected 
for seed under what is known as hill se¬ 
lection, because the tubers would repro¬ 
duce the plant from which they come and 
give only a small yield. A small tuber 
taken from a hill giving a heavy yield 
would be likely to duplicate that yield, 
and it is not likely that a large tuber 
taken from the same hill would do any 
better. The plan followed in hill selec¬ 
tion is to study individual hills and select 
the tubers from those hills, or those 
plants which give finest yield. Of course, 
where the crop is dug and all thrown to¬ 
gether, it is impossible to know the par¬ 
entage of any particular seed, so that it is 
usually better when taking seed from the 
bin just as it comes, to select the large 
tubers, or those of medium size, for 
planting, but when the parentage of the 
seed is known and the best hills are se¬ 
lected it is quite likely that the little po¬ 
tatoes will serve for seed just as well as 
the large ones. 
Cover Crops for Orchards 
Some of our readers talk about a cover 
crop for the orchard, but they seem to 
have the wrong idea of just what this 
means. The real cover crop means both 
cultivation and cropping. For instance, 
the ground is plowed early in the Spring 
and kept well stirred up through the Sum¬ 
mer with some kind of cultivator. Then 
about the middle of June or a little later 
a crop is seeded to hold the ground during 
the rest of the Summer and the Fall. All 
sorts of crops are suggested for this pur¬ 
pose. Some growers use a combination of 
rye and clover. Others find buckwheat 
and clover very satisfactory. We know 
of several cases where people put in a 
combination of Timothy and Ited-top; 
still others use rape and clover or turnip 
and clover. The object is to have some 
crop growing through the late Summer 
and Fall, so as to give organic matter 
which may be plowed into the soil the 
following year. A cover crop holds the 
ground and prevents washing in case of 
late rain. It also causes the trees to 
ripen their wood earlier, and usually gives 
a little better color and quicker ripening 
to the fruit. Another advantage is, with 
such a crop growing in late Summer, it 
prevents the loss of nitrates from the soil. 
The use of oats, barley or clover seed in 
the early Spring would not be as satis¬ 
factory, as it would not be possible with 
such a crop to give the early culture which 
most of oi;r orchards require. Early 
plowing and cultivation up to the middle 
of June, and then the cover crop, is a 
standard plan for handling an orchard. 
Killing Germs of Potato Scab 
For the first time in our remembrance 
people are writing to know what they 
can do to the soil in order to kill the 
germs of potato scab. Probably this is 
the result of articles on the use of inocu¬ 
lated sulphur, now coming to. be used 
quite freely by potato growers. As we 
have often stated, the scab disease comes 
from the growth of the germ, which 
thrives best in an alkaline soil. That is 
why lime or wood ashes will generally in¬ 
crease the amount of scab. By using in¬ 
oculated sulphur the growth of the scab 
germ is prevented or delayed, and a clean 
crop results. As we have stated over and 
over, this inoculated sulphur is common 
powdered sulphur containing germs which 
produce sulphuric acid, so that when put 
into the soil they increase the acidity and 
stop the growth of the germs. 
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1 
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RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 West 30th St., New York 
fr 
