Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1879-02-20
Raise More Irish Potatoes.

The report of the Commissioner
of Agriculture for 1877 is a very
interesting one; but | have not
leasure just now to direct the at,
tention of your farmer readers to
but one item, to which | hope they
will give proper Considerations is
the cultivation of the Irish potato.
This report shows that the average
yield of Indian corn in Tennessee
per acre is twenty-five bushels, and
the average price per bushel IS forty
cents, thus giving ten dollars per
acre for corn. The average yield
of wheat per acre is eight and four
tenths bushels; the average price
per bushel one dollar and four cents,
about nine dollars per acre. The
average yield Of Irish potatoes is
eighty bushels to the acre; the aver
age price ffty-two cents per bushel
or forty-one dollars and sixty cents
per acre. 1t will thus be
seen tat an acre of Irish
potatoes will bring very nearly
five times as much money as wheat
or corn, and potatoes are raised
with as little labor as either wheat
or corn. Now the next question is,
can we find q market for the pota-
toes We may raise? This, report
sets down Georgia and Florida as
raising no Irish potatoes, and these
two States are natural and geo.
graphical markets for East Tennes-
see. Again, South Carolina raises
only 100000 bushels; Alabama,
100000, and Mississippi $4,000
not enough to supply their inhab-
itants, and all of them easily reached
by railroad from this.part ofthe State.
Tennessee only raises 1850, 900
bushels of potatoes. East Tennes-
see alone ought to raise this guam
tity. The Irish potato delights in
a mountainous country, and large
crops can be raised on our ridges
and mountain sides and tops where
scarcely anything else can be grown.
Our produce and commission
merchants inform me that they
have many orders from South Car
DINA, Georgia and Alabama for
Irish potatoes, but they are unable
to supply the demand. So we think |
it important to call the attention of
our farmers to the cultivation of
more ground in Irish potatoes, as it
is an article from which they can
probably derive more profits than
any other article suitable to our
soil and climate. We have no doubt,
with a little more careful attention
to the cultivation of the Irish po-
tato, we can raise the average from
eighty to a hundred bushels per
acre. In many of the States the
average is upwards of a hundred
bushels. If our farmers would clear
off one or two acres of fresh land |
every year and plant in Irish |
potatoes, | think they would be well
for their labor and |
expense. And / have no
doubt the superior favor of the
potato grown on our ridges and |
mountains would soon be appre-
eiated in our Southern States and |
drive off those raised on lowlands.
Many years ago, if | mistake not,
our Southern cities, Charleston,
Savannah and Mobile, were sup>
piled with potatoes from the New
States, but principally
from Maine. The State of Maine,
in 1877, raised seven millions of
thau five times the
quantity of Tennessee. Of course
a very large amount of these was
The average price Of
potatoes in Maine is forty-six cents
per bushel. As general rule, the
farther north potatoes are raised
the better the flavor. So new and
fresh lands grow the finest favored
potatoes. We think by clearing
fresh lands in East Tennessee and
planting in potatoes we can raise as
fine favored ones here as can be
raised anywhere.