146 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
POTATOES FROM THE SEED. 
Messrs. Gaylord & Tucker —One of your subscri¬ 
bers has made inquiry, as to the mode of raising pota¬ 
toes from seed, for the purpose of procuring varieties: 
will you accept the following as a reply? 
The saving of seed requires in the first place some 
little attention: being contained in a capsule of pulpy mat¬ 
ter, it is necessary that it should be separated therefrom, 
by washing and drying, in the same way with cucum¬ 
bers, melons, and some few other seeds, similarly pro¬ 
duced ; and then to be kept free from moisture till the 
following spring, or until when wanted, as thus saved it 
will keep good many years. 
In order to its cultivation, in the month of April pre¬ 
pare a bed, in a portion of the garden that has been 
manured the previous year, in the usual course of crop¬ 
ping, and the soil being well pulverised, open drills, 
about a foot apart, into which drop the seed thinly; 
cover with the rake, and beat down gently with the 
back of the spade, so as to close the particles of earth, 
and afford little access to the small black skipping bug, 
so injurious to the seed leaves of turneps and cabbage, 
which are equaly pernicious to this crop, and require to 
be restrained from their depredations, by the best means 
in the grower’s knowledge. When the plants have at¬ 
tained about half a dozen leaves, hoe, weed and thin 
them out, to three or four inches distance: the super¬ 
numeraries, taken up with a ball of earth to their roots, 
may be transplanted safely into a separate bed, and give 
the cultivator a fairer chance of the improved variety, 
and do away with the idea that may otherwise intrude 
on the imagination, that the better kind may have been 
lost in thinning. 
Following the nature of the potato, the vine will now 
grow rapidly, and in a fortnight will require a second 
weeding, to be followed with what in farmer’s language 
is called, earthing up ; and it then remains only to watch 
the period of the decay or ripening of each plant, as 
some will reach their maturity early, and others will 
continue growing till the arrival of the autumnal frosts. 
It may be satisfactory and useful to notice these periods, 
and contrast them with their times of ripening the suc¬ 
cessive year, and thus identify them, as an early or late 
sort. They will now have to be carefully harvested, each 
root having its produce kept separate, and placed out of 
the reach of the winter’s frost, for the next year’s cul¬ 
ture ; for this purpose, it will be advisable to employ a 
flour barrel of dry chaff, into which the potatoes are 
to be packed, each sort previously wrapped in paper 
and thus secured from mixture with another. In the 
ensuing spring they must be again submitted to the 
earth. The growth of this year involves no little care 
and trouble. Separate the early from the late, and dwarfs 
from those of more luxurious growth, and prepare the 
ground as before. If you plant in hills, those with the 
longest haulm will require a distance of three feet; if 
on the contrary you drop them in furrows, the same dis¬ 
tance will be needed from furrow to furrow, lessening 
the space as the plants decrease in the length of the 
vine to two feet. It may be as well also before planting, 
to take off a small piece of the peel to ascertain the 
color, the prejudice being in favor of a white potato 
over a yellow, and a yellow over a black, for there are 
all manner of varieties of hues, both externally and in¬ 
ternally, and it would be useless to grow those which 
are quite black. Four or five tubers, where there are 
as many, will be sufficient for this year’s cultivation, 
and as years are consumed in this undertaking, it will be 
necessary to commence an early system of experiment: 
for this purpose, of each sort plant one tuber whole, 
next a half, then two eyes, and lastly one eye (rohan 
fashion,) the distance between the planting when in 
drills from 6 to 8 inches, and if means are within reach, 
it would be proper to try as far as may be the effects of 
different soils on each potato, as the light, the heavy and 
the medium. No further directions are necessary for this 
years culture ; they are treated as potatoes, and will at 
harvest have attained their full growth and may be intro¬ 
duced into the kitchen: for although popular opinion 
gives three years fora potato to acquire its proper quali¬ 
ties, the foundation of which is perhaps more in the 
mystery of numbers than in real truth, yet as it will 
have reached its natural size, I can see no reason why 
it should require another year to develop its other pro¬ 
perties. Should the experimenter resolve to put faith 
in popular sayings, it will be necessary, in harvesting, 
once more to separate the sorts and repeat the experi¬ 
ments he has just gone through, and any others that 
may occur to him. 
The chief points of goodness or value in a potato, 
are a white color, a good size, smooth skin, with eyes 
or shoots gently depressed; there is a preference also 
for a kidney shape; the tubers should grow close to the 
stem, be numerous and keep well, and the haulm or 
vine be short; and finally, above all, the potato must 
cook mealy: a combination of these points, would be 
the perfection of the root. To attain such a consum¬ 
mation, has been the continuous effort of the last nine 
years of the writer’s life ; that he has not accomplished 
his object, has been the result of a concurrence of un¬ 
favorable circumstances, an over fastidiousness to attain 
the most of the favorable points, and a soil unfavorable 
to the culture of the potato, stiff, cold, and clayey. 
Roots, that have promised well in the light soil of gar¬ 
den culture, have failed, when cultivated in the field; 
hundreds of sorts have been rejected on the score of co¬ 
lor, the white only having been selected; length of 
stalk has condemned many, and perverseness, or incon¬ 
gruity of shape, with rude shoulders, &c. &c. many 
more; and I confess that the celebrated Rohan would 
have incontinently been condemned to the hog pen, had 
it been first raised by the humble individual who now 
addresses you. I have not recommended manure for 
the seed beds, as I have found an over rich soil raise 
anticipations, which were not realized in culture on a 
large scale. Much care is requisite to the safe keeping 
of the roots through the winter: the only sort I conti¬ 
nue to grow, I had nearly lost some years back, by an 
early frost in November, which continued with so much 
unexpected severity, that I lost fifteen bushels, as I 
thought my whole stock; but fortunately one potato re¬ 
mained in the ground, and was preserved by the acci¬ 
dental dropping of a portion of salt hay on the spot 
where it lay. I was obliged to commence operations 
afresh, after having just raised sufficient seed to war¬ 
rant the expectation of a full crop the succeeding year, 
for the market. I mention this to impress on the grow¬ 
er, a due care. It remains to be observed, that the ex¬ 
periment is quite a lottery. Five and twenty years 
since, I was fortunate the first trial; the last nine years 
I have industriously persevered, and from a thousand 
plants, have only saved one as deserving of culture, and 
that far from my ideas of a perfect plant. The fault 
lies in my seeking for too much, and looking for too ma¬ 
ny good qualities in the object of my experiment; many 
valuable potatoes I have thrown away in search of that, 
which perhaps is not to be found. With more moderate 
expectations, I might have been more successful, and 
perhaps on a lighter soil, might have obtained my ob¬ 
ject; my want of success must not deter your inquirer 
from making the attempt. I still continue on a small 
scale. I have been led to prosecute a variety of experi¬ 
ments, which, if they have not afforded profit, have sup¬ 
plied me with a fund of amusement, and probably some 
little increase of knowledge. 
The Schoolmaster Abroad. 
Making Auger Holes with a Gimlet. 
“ My boy what are you doing there with that gimlet?” 
said I the other morning to a flaxen haired urchin, who 
was laboring away with all his might at a piece of board 
before him. 4 ‘ Trying to make an auger hole !” was his 
reply, without raising his eyes or suspending his opera¬ 
tions. 
“Precisely the business of at least two thirds of the 
world, in this blessed year of our Lord 1840, is this 
making auger holes with a gimlet;” I said to myself, as 
I walked musingly onward. 
Here is young A. who has just escaped from the clerk’s 
desk behind the counter. He sports his mustaches; 
wears his hair long; has acquired the power of being 
shaved ; carries a rattan; drinks champaign when he 
can command an X to purchase a bottle, and treat a friend 
to a dinner; talks large of the price current, fall of 
western stocks, and profits of banking; stands in his 
boots two inches taller than Astor or Appleton; and 
speaks of foreign exchanges as would Rothchild or 
Biddle. He thinks he is a great man, when all others 
know he is only making auger holes with a gimlet. 
Mr. B. is a rabid politician. He has labored hard at 
caucuses, at ward and toivn meetings, has talked of 
the dear people till the words flow parrot like from his 
lips, and has done a full share of the dirty work of par¬ 
ty for years. Office has been the lure held out to lead 
him onwards, and which has made him neglect his busi¬ 
ness, spend his time in hunting up recruits, drilling the 
refractory, and qualifying himself for bar-room argu¬ 
ment and stump oratory. He can settle the affairs of 
the nation in a trice; diplomacy has no intricacies for 
him ; he has shaken hands with the president, and is a 
great man. He will soon be used up, and cast aside; 
and will then see, as others now do, that he is chasing 
a jack o’lantern, that he is making auger holes with a 
gimlet. 
There is Miss. C. who is"really a pretty girl, and who 
might become a woman a man of sense would be proud 
of. Now, she apes the ton in all things; reads excit¬ 
ing novels, goes to the opera, admires Celeste’s dancing, 
has nearly ceased to blush at the most indecent nudity, 
lounges on sofas, glories in her idleness, keeps her bed 
till noon, coquets with male animals as feminine as her¬ 
self, imagines she is a belle, forgets that her father was 
a cooper, lisps of high life, and plebeian presumption, 
and is in a fair way to ruin herself. All this comes of 
her belief that an aguer hole can be made by a gimlet. 
Mr. B., whom I have just passed, may be put down as 
a distinguished professor of the gimlet. He was a far¬ 
mer. His father left him a fine farm free of incum¬ 
brance ; but speculation became rife, fortunes were 
made in a twinkling, and D. fancied “ one thing could 
be done as well as another.” So he sold his farm, and 
bought wild lands in the prairies, and corner lots in li¬ 
thographed cities; and began to dream of wealth worthy 
of “golden Ind.” Work he could not; it had suddenly 
become degrading. Who could think of tilling or being 
contented with a hundred acres of land, when thousands 
of acres in the broad west were waiting for occupants 
or owners. D. was not the man to do it, and he operated 
to the extent of his means. At last the land bubble 
broke; lithographed cities were discovered to be mere 
bogs; and prairie farms, though the basis of exhaust¬ 
less wealth, worthless unless rendered productive by 
labor. But D’s. beautiful farm is gone, and as he is now 
preparing on compulsion to become a pioneer in the 
west, he feels that it is difficult making auger holes with 
a gimlet. 
Mr. E. is the representative of quite a class. He had 
his attention awakened to the subject of religion, and | 
obtained new views of its importance and his own ob¬ 
ligations. Believing what cannot be disputed, that love 
to God and good will to man, is the only true source of 
happiness, and feeling, as every benevolent mind must, 
a desire for the welfare of his race, he fancied himself 
called to declare these truths to the world ; and forsak¬ 
ing his lapstone, his anvil, or his plow, became with¬ 
out delay an expounder of the scriptures, a self-dele¬ 
gated. instructor of mankind. He forgot that the age 
of miracles had ceased; and that the ability to teach 
must, now be acquired by the slow but necessary pro¬ 
cess of human learning. He begins to have misgivings 
that he has mistaken his call; and will probably dis¬ 
cover, when too late to rectify the error, that he has 
spent the best half of his life in trying to make auger 
holes with a gimlet. Observer. 
EXPERIMENTS IN THE CULTURE OF CORN. 
Messrs. Editors —There is one subject, which I 
have not yet seen treated of in your paper, or any other, 
that I now recollect; which has been hard for me to 
account for, and I would now make the inquiry—Why 
is it that the replanting of corn (although it may grow 
as strong,) is so much less productive of grain than'corn 
of the same kind planted at the same time in a lot where 
all is planted? I have believed there was no effect with¬ 
out a cause. I will mention some of my observations, 
and my conclusions from them ; perhaps they will draw 
from abler pens something that will be more satisfactory. 
About two years since, in passing through my lot of 
corn, in a moist time, I observed many white specks on 
the surface of the ground, and on examination, I found 
them to be corn roots, which appeared to occupy the 
whole surface ; (it was at the time of the corn shooting 
into ears,) I passed it without much reflection at the 
time, but after reading in the 2d volume of the Cultiva¬ 
tor, an extract from Chaptal’s Chemistry, as applicable 
to agriculture, and of the power in plants to draw nour¬ 
ishment from the atmosphere, particularly for the for¬ 
mation of seeds or grain, it appeared rational to con¬ 
clude, that the cause why the few stalks of replanted corn 
were so much later forming their roots, was that the roots 
of the first planting pre-occupied so much of the surface, 
that there was little room left for the second to draw 
their portion from. 
If the above should be the cause, or have any consi¬ 
derable influence, would it not be much more rational 
to work corn early, and when left, leave it with a 
smooth surface, such as the cultivator and harrow 
would leave, (by the by, I have used nothing else in my 
corn crop since I saw the first cultivator, which is above 
20 years since, except under particular circumstances,) 
than to plow, as is sometimes done, till August, and 
then leave it in hills, which become so dry, that these 
roots can find nothing to nourish them, and the bot¬ 
tom of the furrows perhaps so hard, they cannot pene¬ 
trate. 
I will mention one little circumstance which occurred 
last season. I let one of my neighbors have a small 
part of my lot, (it only contains about ten to twelve 
acres,) to put in corn, &c. We planted the same kind 
of corn, and I believe the same day. He plowed his 
corn, I w r orked mine wfith the cultivator. It was new 
ground, and of course in poor condition to work with 
the cultivator, but I would not fly, as it was understood 
when planting, we would see which would have the best 
corn. When it was gathered, I do not know that the 
quantity differed materially, but I think there was not 
one half of his fit for the crib, or that could be called 
sound, while mine was nearlv all sound corn. 
DANIEL EMBREE. 
Logan-sport, Cass Co., Indiana, June 28th, 1840. 
LARGE CALF. 
Messrs. Gaxhdrd & Tucker —Haidng seen in the 
last Cultivator, the weight of Mr. Youkghans’ calf, 
which, by that statement, beats mine 106 lbs, mine 
weighing the day he was one year old 920 lbs. I had 
him weighed at 10£ months old ; he then was 840 lbs. 
When he was last put on the scales, he made 970 lbs, 
but thinking it impossible for him to have gained so 
much since weighed, w r e took him off’, and found the 
scales were not balanced ; on adjusting the scales his 
nett weight was 920 lbs. I mention this, lest there might 
have been a similar mistake in -weighing Mr. Y’s. Had 
mine not been weighed at 10 months, I undoubtedly 
would have thought his weight 970 lbs. Mine was weighed 
by Mr. Moses Hall, sealer and weigher, Geneva. 
Yours, 8cc. JOHN JOHNSTON. 
Geneva, July 23, 1840. 
CURE FOR THE POLL EVIL. 
Messrs. Editors —I send you a receipt for the cure 
of the poll evil and fistula. Secure the horse for the 
operation. You must make an incision in the tumor, 
and put in a piece of ratsbane the size of a grain of 
corn, or if fine, wrap it in a piece of soft paper and put 
it into the incision, and take a stich or two to secure it 
from coming out, and it will perform the cure. It is 
necessary, after it commences running, to keep it clean 
from the outside, as, if the matter is suffered to remain 
on the outside, it will take off the hair. There has 
been a good many cured in this neighborhood in this 
way. After the operation, the horse can be turned to 
grass or kept in the stable, as it may suit the owmer. 
JOSEPH GOOD. 
Madison C. H. Va. March 18, 1840. 
