JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER.  September  21,  1899. 
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varying  from  the  blackened  produce  of  the  sand  to  the  soap  and 
watoriness  of  the  clay,  and  must  do  so  until  he  awakes  to  the  fact 
that  he  can  have  better  at  the  same  price  if  he  will  only  put  his  foot 
down  and  insist  on  it. 
Soil  has  more  to  do  with  the  production  of  good  quality  Potatoes 
than  the  kind  or  variety.  Any  vaiiety  will  be  gcod  from  land  such 
as  there  is  alout  Dunbar  in  the  Lothians.  When  we  see  in  the  pa;er 
the  market  quotations  of  Covent  Garden  or  Spitalfields,  and  notice 
that  the  highest  price  is  obtained  for  Dunbar  Reds,  we  must  not 
conclude  that  we  are  reading  of  a  red-skinned  Potato,  but  one  grown 
on  red  soil,  and  having  its  white  skin  more  or  less  reddened  by  the 
soil  still  adhering  to  it.  Dunbar  is  not  the  only  district  where  there 
is  red  s oil  ;  there  are  many  similar  patches  scattered  about  the  country. 
Soil  like  this  has  only  one  serious  rival  as  to  Potato  production — viz., 
the  warp  or  alluvial  soil  abutting  on  the  estuaries  of  tidal  rivers. 
Some  of  the  latter  is  natural,  and  was  deposited  by  the  tides  ages  ago. 
Some  is  artificial,  and  has  been  formed  by  the  warping  process.  Both 
are  excellent  and  indispeus  tble  for  the  growth  of  Potatoes,  and  to  that 
purpose  are  largely  devoted.  On  red  soil  and  warp  all  that  is  required 
is  a  good  disease  resisting  and  heavy  cropping  variety.  Quality  will 
look  after  itself,  being  natural  to  the  soil. 
Having  grown  our  Potatoes,  whether  on  suitable  soil  or  not,  it 
will  soon  be  time  <0  tike  them  up.  Any  of  the  second  early  varieties 
such  as  Giants,  Elephants,  Jeunnie  Deans,  or  British  Queen,  should 
be  lifted  at  once,  in  fact  any  sorts  that  have  the  skins  fast  or  nearly 
so,  and  whose  haulm  has  shown  strong  signs  of  decaja 
^  e  fear  that  this  season  the  later  kinds  encouraged  by  the  recent 
heavy  rains  will  make  a  renewed  growth,  which  will  seriously  po-t- 
pone  the  harvest  and  spoil  the  shape  and  quality ,  though  it  may 
largely  increase  the  bulk  of  the  crop.  In  any  event  we  must  give  the 
crop  iull  time  to  mature.  If  we  lift  it  too  soon,  unless  it  is  marketed 
at  once,  the  tubers  will  not  keep,  and  there  will  be  loss  in  the  storage? 
whilst  quality  will  be  the  minimum. 
There  are  many  opinions  as  to  the  best  way  to  lift  Potatoes? 
some  prefer  the  old-fashioned  hand-fork,  but  it  is  expensive,  and’ 
carelessly  used,  vny  destructive  to  the  tubers.  Rotary  diggers  a1" 
excellent  where  the  ground  is  firm  and  not  too  dry,  they  leave  tl.e 
Potatoes  on  the  surface,  anl  easy  to  gather,  so  that  any  child  migh 
pick  them  up.  No  doubt  these  machines  present  to  us  the  easiest 
and  cheapest  solution  of  the  Potato-lifting  difficulty,  and  were  it  nos 
that  they  are  apt  to  brui  e  and  damage  an  undue  proportion  of  thf 
crop,  they  would  soon  become  almost  universal.  Unfortunately  n° 
machine  has  yet  been  invented  which  will  gather  up  the  Potatoes  a° 
wrell  as  fork  them  out  of  the  ground.  Necessity,  caused  ly  the 
scarcity  of  nimble  fingers,  may  prove  to  be  the  mother  of  invention 
in  this  case  as  it  has  in  others. 
The  old  Potato-lifting  plough  with  its  sloping  tines  in  place  of  a 
mould-board,  is  still  very  useful,  and  clung  to  by  many  shrewd 
growers.  Less  tubers  are  damaged  by  its  use  than  by  any  other 
process  of  lilting,  and  where  competent  hands  can  be  found  to  scratch 
out  those  only  partially  exposed,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  in 
spite  of  its  being  more  expensive  than  the  spinning  digger  in  the  first 
instance — i.e.,  in  the  labour  required  to  follow  it,  it  may  be  the  most 
truly  economical  when  the  question  of  damaged  tubers  has  been  taken 
into  account. 
WORK  ON  THE  HOME  FARM. 
We  have  had  one  good  rain,  which  seems  to  have  broken  up  the  heat. 
The  rain  has  done  wonders  for  the  root  crops,  and  they  have  much 
improved  on  their  recent  desperate  condition.  A  good  half  crop  is  as 
much  as  we  can  hope  for  even  yet,  but  that  is  better  than  utter  failure. 
More  rain  must  fall  before  wo  can  plough.  We  have  seen  some 
attempts  made,  but  it  is  poor  work  at  best,  and  can  only  be  called 
skinning.  Time  is  passing  away  so  rapidly,  and  seed  time  is  so  near, 
that  it  is  only  natural  farmers  should  be  anxious  to  have  the  seed-bed 
ready. 
Many  farmers  have  been  working  the  spring  cultivator  in  the  stubbles 
since  the  rain;  the  implement  could  not  penetrate  very  deeply,  but  was 
sufficient  to  stir  the  surface  and  root  up  the  small  tufts  of  twitch.  Fortu¬ 
nately  Wheat  stubbles  are  clean  this  year,  and  require  little  autumn 
fallowing. 
The  young  plant  of  Clover  is  a  very  doubtful  quantity.  Already  we 
hear  ot  fields  being  given  up  as  hopeless  for  next  year’s  grazing,  and  of 
their  being  broken  up  with  the  cultivator  and  sown  with  a  catch  crop 
mixture  of  Winter  Oats,  Tares ,  and  Trifolium.  This  should  be  ready 
to  stock  by  Lady  Day,  and  ihe  idea  is  to  graze  the  land  until  midsummer, 
then  break  it  up  and  sow  with  late  Turnips. 
Other  fields  where  the  Clover  plant  is  nil  will  be  got  ready  for 
Potatoes,  and  the  seeds  that  have  been  summer  grazed  and  would  have 
been  succeeded  by  a  Potato  crop,  will  have  to  lie  another  year.  They7  will 
be  manure  d  during  the  early  part  of  winter,  and  the  manure  will  both  pro¬ 
tect  the  seeds  from  frost  and  encourage  the  growth  of  the  Clover,  which 
otherwise  might  be  irclined  to  dwindle  away. 
The  Wheat  sowing  period  again  makes  us  think  of  how7  to  get  the 
best  varieties.  We  have  ourselves  as  yet  seen  nothing  to  bent  Soholey’s 
Squarehead  on  heavy  land,  but  on  peat  or  sand  we  shall  recommend 
Stanhope  White  or  Cole  Ambrose,  both  of  which  are  healthy  in  the  straw 
and  mature  well.  The  quantity  sown  should  vary  between  Specks  per 
acre  on  October  1st  to  12  pecks  in  mid  November,  graduating  the 
quantity  betweer. 
OUR  LETTER  BOX. 
Hay  Measurement  (S.  <S.). — Multiply  in  yards  the  length,  width,  and 
height,  the  latter  beipg  half  way  between  the  eaves  and  the  pitch  of  the 
rotf.  Having  ascertained  the  number  of  cubic  yards,  divide  by  10,  and! 
you  will  find  the  number  of  loads,  if  the  hay  be  of  average  quality  and 
weight.  The  number  of  cubic  yards  per  load  might  vary  from  9  to  12  or 
even  more. 
Irish  Plax. — In  the  farm  section  of  the  Newtownards  Show,  held 
on  the  7th  mat.,  roots  and  cereals  were  well  shown.  Mr.  George  Walker, 
J  P..  of  Knock,  who  devotes  his  time  to  Plax  development,  staged 
specimens  of  Plax  straw,  having  roots  extending  over  6  feet.  The 
exhibit  had  attracted  a  large  meed  of  attention,  due  to  the  lesson  it  bore, 
that  deep  cultivation  for  Flax  is  not  to  be  treated  lightly. — A.  O’NEIL. 
Butter  Production  Extraordinary.  —  The  Americans  are 
wonderful  peop'e  for  going  one  better  than  their  opponents  in  every¬ 
thing  they  undertake.  In  these  countries,  Jersey  breeders  are  content 
with  getting  their  animals  to  average  a  pound  of  butter  for  every  gallon 
and  a  half  of  milk  which  they  produce  ;  but  our  Yankee  cousins  have 
gone  so  far  in  effecting  improvements  in  the  butter- producing  capacity  of 
their  Channel  Island  cattle  that  in  a  test  which  was  lecently  conducted 
in  the  States,  eight  cows  produced  an  average  of  1  lb.  butter  to  every 
7-21  lbs.  of  milk.  This  is  equal  to  a  pound  of  butter,  to  rather  less  than 
three-quarters  of  a  gallon  of  milk,— (•’ Irish  Farmers’  Gazette.”) 
An  English  Calf  Breeder’s  Mixture.— An  authority  says  : 
“A  prominent  English  stock-breeder  claims  to  have  had  most  successful 
results  in  the  feeding  of  his  calves  by  the  use  of  a  combination  of  grain 
foods,  which  enables  him  to  completely  dispense  with  milk  after  the 
animals  are  a  few  weeks  old.  This  gentleman  makes  up  a  mixture  of 
7  lbs.  of  linseed  cake,  2  gallons  of  hay  tea,  and  7  lbs.  of  mixed  meal  con¬ 
sisting  of  equal  parts  of  Wheat,  Barley,  Oats,  and  bonemeal  dissolved  in 
4  gallons  of  hot  water.  Oue  gallon  of  this  mixture  is  given  twice  daily 
mixed  with  its  own  bulk  of  water,  and  on  this  the  calves  are  said  to 
thrive  remarkably  until  they  are  fit  for  weaning.  The  mixture  costs 
from  Is.  3d.  to  Is.  6d.  per  head  per  week.” 
The  Feeding  and  Treatment  of  Young  Stock.— The  feeding 
given  to  young  stock  should  largely  depend  upon  their  breeding,  their 
age,  and  the  use  to  which  they  are  intended  to  t.e  put.  Young  animals 
require  bone  and  flesh-forming  ma'erial  to  a  much  larger  extent  than 
animals  of  greater  age  ;  older  animals  increase  in  weight  chiefly  by 
laying  on  far,  and  for  this  reason  the  food  best  adapted  for  them  is  one 
containing  a  goodly  proportion  of  fat-forming  materials— carbo-hydrates 
as  the  chemists  call  them.  When,  says  a  contemporary,  young  stock  is 
being  reared  for  the  butcher’s  block  the  object  of  the  feeder  should  be 
to  encourage  the  laying  on  of  as  much  flesh  as  possible  within  a  certain 
time.  It  is,  of  course,  different  where  the  animals  are  to  be  used  for 
breeding  put  poses,  but  even  in  this  case  it  always  pays  to  keep  them  in 
good  condition,  as  the  produce  of  animals  so  Heated  will  always  do 
better  than  the  stock  bred  from  parents  which  are  kept  in  a  thin 
impoverished  condition  during  the  early  stages  of  their  existence. 
The  Hop  Crop. — As  so  many  conflicting  statements  .have  been 
made  about  the  Hop  crop,  a  representative  of  the  “  Daily  Chronicle  ,r 
called  at  the  Hop  Exchange  early  last  week,  to  learn  what  the  London 
merchants  bad  to  say.  It  is  only  too  true  that  a  serious  blight  has 
affected  the  Hops  this  season  in  several  parts.  Of  course  some  of  the 
merchants,  having  got  the  early  crops,  or  arranged  for  supplies  from 
the  unaffected  areas,  will  do  more  business  than  ever,  because  they  will 
gain  all  the  advantage  from  the  rise  in  prices  which  is  expected  to  follow. 
Altogether  there  are  some  52,000  acres  of  land  in  this  country  given  up 
to  Hop  growing.  The  estimated  yield  this  year  was  about  600,000  cwts. 
That  estimate  has  had  to  be  materially  reduced,  owing  to  large  tracts  of 
Hop  fields  having  been  entirely  spoiled  by  vermin.  Some  of  the  best 
growing  districts  have  been  affected,  notably  the  Weald  of  Kent  and  in 
Mid-Sussex.  The  consequence  is  that  hundreds  of  acres  in  these  districts 
will  not  be  pulled  at  all.  The  blight  is  caused  by  vermin,  which  eats  into- 
the  cone  of  the  Hop  and  destroy  it.  The  disease  has  only  shown  itself 
during  the  past  three  weeks,  and  has  naturally  caused  much  anxiety  among 
growers  anil  merchants.  There  is  no  accounting  for  it.  Some  blame  the 
hot  weather,  following  early  morning  fogs.  Others  say  tlie  vermin  are 
liable  to  come  at  any  time,  and  that  growers  always  run  the  risk  of  having 
theiv  crops  spoilt  by  the  little  creatures.  The  whole  season’s  crop  will 
not  only  be  much  less  in  quantity,  but  inferior  in  quality.  The  early 
pickings  escaped  the  blight,  and  are  consequently  in  good  condition. 
