Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1876-04-21
Raising Potatoes.
Hon. Alexander Hyde writes to the New
Xnrk Times

Hon. Alexander Hyde writes to the New
York Times
In planting select for seed mcdium-sized
potatoes and those that are smooth and egg.
shaped. We often hear it said that small
potatoes are as good as large for seed and
we were once so foolish as to think so our
selves. In one years trial the small pota-
toes may give crop, under favorable cir
cumstances, equal or almost equal to that
raised from larger seed but follow up plant
ing small seed for series of years, and de-
generacy will surely be the result. Plant
ing warty or ugly shaped potatoes is still
worse. These warts propagate themselves
just as they do in the human species. Warts
and wens crop out in the fourth and fifth
generation after they have become apparently
obiterated, and a wart is a Disagreement,
whether on men or potatoes. We can't be
too particular as to what we plant and sow,
for the harvest will be of the same sort.
Generally too much seed-we call it seed
according to common parlance--is used in
planting potatoes. We have known fifteen
to twenty bushels used in planting an acre.
This is three times too much. Too many
stalks in hill Of potatoes is as bad rs two
many stalks Of corn. Small potatoes are
often the result Of too much seed Some
times the vigorous shoot overpowers the
weaker and produces stable tubers, but there
is no necessity OF producing such discord in
the home Of the potato, and there is great
waste IN it. We much prefer to cut medi-
um-sized potato into four or five pieces, aud
plant in drills. BY thus planting we get
greater yield and better sized tubers To
prevent rotting, and at the same time to fur
nish some nutrition to the young shoot, We
put the cut potatoes into barrels and
spread on the top of them couple of quarts
of plaster GYPSUM and give the barrel
good shake. The plaster settles down among
the potatoes, coating each fresh cut surface,
aud preventing the leaking OF the juices and
the ingress of moisture. We never knew
potatoes treated in this manner to rot in the
ground, and the increase in yield is out of
all proportion to the homeopathic dose Of fer.
tility employed.
This leads US TO another suggestion as to
the kind OF fertilizer to be used in cultlvat-
ing this crop. The potato is eminently a
potash plant, as is manifest from the analysis
|
over fifty per cent Of potash, the quantity
varying with different varieties from forty
four to sixty per cent. Other saline constit-
uents abound, particularly phosphoric and
sulphuric acids and common salt, This fact
evidently points to the use ofsaline rather than
nitrogenous manures for potatoes, and prac'
tice confirms the deduction of science on this
point We have never found anything equal
to wood ashes to make potatoes grow and
furnish an article Of the first quality. Prot
Stockbridge's famous formula for a potato
fertilizer, which he estimates will produce
two bushels per acre more than the natura
production Of the land, is twenty.One pounds
nitrogen, thirty-four pounds potash, and
eleven pounds soluble phosphorc acid, which
can be obtained from four to five hundred
pounds Of crude materials, at a cost OF about
twelve dollars. If wood ashes can be OBJ
Iained for twenty or twenty-five cents PEE
bushels, cheaper, and on the whole a NOR,
reliable, fertilizer can be secured than thl
formula offers. Wood ashes are deficient ii
nitrogen but the true value OF potatoes, a'
food, is for building up the frame work, the
bones of the animal, and supplying carboI
, for sustaining health and heat, not for build
, ing the muscular system. The former objec
| is accomplished by the saline matter in til
, potato and the latter by the starch, of whic
this tuber in its natural condition, gives fl
a teen per cent. If any addition is made t
the wood ashes we would recommend plaS
. ter, common salt and phosphate of lime,
0 applied in the drill or hill, twenty bushels O
/ ashes, one hundred pounds phosphate of lin
/ and fifty pounds of fue salt are amply sufi
: cient for on acre.