The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-02-20
TRucK FARMERs BUSY.
Potato Planting About Finished and
O Big Increase in Acreage.

O Big Increase in Acreage.
The truck farmers are busy winding up
their potato planting, and there is a con-
siderable increase in the acreage. Maj. G.
NJ. RIVALS will finish to-day. He will then
have planted 100 barrels, all early vari-
cites. Massey g. Son, the lessees Of Hutchin-
sons Island, will also finish planting to-day.
and they estimate that they had 800 barrels
of seed potatoe'. They planted some four
or five early varieties.
A MORNING NEWS reporter visited their
fields yesterday aud witnessed their method
of planting. Mr.. Massey's son. with two
horse potato planter, rode on the latter. and
the implement dropped and covered the
cuttings at uniform distances. A one-horse
fertilizer drill marked OFF the burrows in
which the fertilizer was deposited as the
drill marked the row. Mr.. Massey believes
in using the latest ald most improved far
IMPLEMENTS and he says what can't be done
with them and with horse is left undone.
The Masseys have eight or ten acres in
peas, which are looking well. They say,
however, that Of the 600 acres leased, thew
have vet about $50 acres to clear up. and
they think it more profitable to cultivate
field corn, oats, hay, and potatoes. than
fruits and early vegetables. They have
a fair prospect for asp sragus for next sea-
SON. The long dry weather has set back
the crop so that no effort will be made to
draw upon the beds this season. They will
have very few Strawberries, as the drought
affected the plants set out last fall. Mr..
Massey thinks the outlay is too great for the
returns on Strawberries raised on the island,
and they will give less attention to berries
in the future.
They will soon begin corn planting, and
they plant along up to August. Their ex-
pertinent with corn on the island has been
quite satisfactory, and equally so with hay,
and they are now probably marketing last
years crop.
One of the noticeable features of the
Massey farm is the excellent condition of
the stock, horses being principally used.
Very few hands are employed, labor saving
agricultural implements taking the place Of
colored LABOR which is seldom intelligent
and very rarely reliable in the truck patch.
1t cannot be depended on in every emer-
gency, and it is tie experience of planters
that it eau be more proftably employed in
the cotton, cane and rice fields than in the
truck patch.
A MORNING NEWS reporter visited Mai
q. NJ. Ryals' place day before yesterday,
and found the greater part of the farm
force actively engaged in potato planting,
and several plows were running in the
truck patches. 1t will only be few DAYS
until the first crop of peas will be ready for
market. The vines are looking healthy and
vigorous. Irrigation in the cabbage patch
this year was an experiment, but it has
proved most satisfactory one. I'VE have
good artesian well, and the water was
going to waste" said Mr.. Gracy, Mai.
Ryals' main man on the farm, land the
weather was extremely dry we constructed
dams and bitches and sent the water into
the cabbage patch, and you can see how
thrifty they look"
The frost blghted the first blooms of the
strawberry vines, but since then other
blooms have put out, and quite number of
plants have ripening berries on them, but
the crows are beginning on them, and have
proved to be almost as bad as the frost on
the first berries ripening. The depredations
Of the crows are easily stopped, however,
and the way the planters do is to cripple a
crow and fasten the wounded bird ia the
patch, and the crows will stear clear of it
thereafter.
The first Savannah peas of the season
were shipped Saturday by l.. Putzel, and
Hart Bros. forwarded a shipment of peas
by yesterdays steamer. The peas were
grown on Tybee Island. In two weeks
from now peas will be going forward
lively,