The Democrat. (Scotland Neck, Halifax Co., N.C.) 1884-1896, 1888-11-01

II you mean to raise potatoes next
year, now IS the time to select thu
ground for them. 4 piece Of clover
turned under, will make as good
piece of land for potatoes as you can
get, provided the soil IS the right kind
next to clover, barley stubblo, then
oats. Whichever you select, draw up
on it from twenty to forty loads of we'll
rottod barn-yard manure to the acre
(Corty are better than twenty, then
pillow deep, and in spring top dress with
wood ashes or lime or both, and work
with acme pulverizer or a good harrow;
then furrow out your drills
two and a half or three feet apart,
and drop your seed in the drills
twelve to twenty inches apart.
Rightly managed, the potato crop
can be made profitable to any farmer;
the more profitable to one near large
town or city, where he can make his
own sales, and thus save freight and
commission. The trial that is now
being made by noted potato growers in
this country, is being watched with in
terest. The editor of the Rural New
Yorker, has wacered $50 with Mr.. At
klnson, of the Farm Journal, that he
can raise this year $50 bushels OF po-
tatoes from half an acre, or at the rate
of 700 bushels per acre. Mr.. Rose of
New York, caps the climax when he
offers to wager $500 that he can raise at
the rate of 1000 bushels per acre from
half-eye cuttings. If Mr.. Rose will
raise $50 bushels from one-fourth
acre, planted with his haIf-eyo
pieces, he surely deserves the thanks
of the farming fraternity, as this would
be great saving of seed which is quite
an item in planting ten acres when po-
tatoes are from 81 upward per bu5hel.
1t is true there are a great many farm
ers who do not believe that such yields
can be obtained as are claimed by soma
of these cXpcrimenters as rule, this
class of men do not try to raise more
potatoes than they use-often have to
buy-and say it does not pay to raise
potatoes; it does not pay them. Let
every farmer who hears of these tests,
study the method by which these re-
suits are obtained, and then put il
practice the lesson learned.
After We have our land all ready,
we'll manurcl, pIowed and pulverized,
our seed we'll selected--no immature,
frost bitten or rotten tubers- and
nicely cut or fair sized if we are going
to plant whole ones, we will look at a
few figures. If we cut our burrows for
the drills three feet apart, and drop seed
Que foot apart in the rows, we will have
"A, $50 hills to the acre. Do you call
two pounds of potatoes to the hill a big
yield2 If you can make them yield that
you have 484 bushels to the acre. If
only one pound to the hill you have 242
bushels to the acre, which is better than
the average yield for this country last
year; it was only itty-fOur bushels to
the acre, and Ohio gave an average of
only thirty bushels. Does that speak
we'll for advanced agriculture?
As you select and prepare your land
this fall for your next years potato crop,
resolve that you will do your share
toward bringing up the average yield of
potatoes. After welI-propared land,
good seed and careful planting, wo
must have thorough cultivation. Keep
the harrow going till you can use the
u tivator; use that and the hoe till you
have to hill UP; then if a strong weed
is found between the hills, pull it up;
keep your eye open for the beetle and
1--WE him an early breakfast of Paris
green when you find him. Dig the po-
tatoes as soon as ripe, and we knowyou
viii have more than the 1897 average.