Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1893-05-11
Potatoes and Starch.

TO The Alert:-In the Item which ap-
peared under the above heading in the
issue of Mondays date, the percentage
of starch in the experiments should read
9.4 to 14.8. As 1t seems to me from the
questioning have been subjected to this
that there is considerable inter
est being taken in the subject, and as
there is in the minds Of many some
doubts as to the largeness of the crop
that can be raised, I will, with your per-
mission, state that have made study
OF the potato, have experimental largely,
have corresponded with some of the very
highest authorities on the subject both
in this and foreign countries, and it will
probably astonish some of your readers
to hear of the possibilities in the way of
raising large crops of potatoes. The life
Of potato averages about Is years, and
unless the crop is we'll grown, and the
seed for the succeeding year selected
with great care. the natural consequence
is smaller crops and poorer quality, and
I make bold to say that not one farmer
in twenty, IN this country, pays the
smallest attention to this very important
factor in getting large crop of superior
tubers. BY observation find that when
the crop is ready to be put away, they
are dumped in the cellar or pit, and day
by day the best are selected for the
table. and when seeding time comes
around many farmers have hard work to
scratch up enough small, poorly ripened.
misshapened potatoes for seed, and AS in
nature, like produces like, the conse-
quence, small crop of poor potatoes
therefore the first requisite is good seed.
In support OF the foregoing arguments,
l can give the names Of otherwise good
farmers who have been using the same
seed for the last nine years, and when
they hear Of others raising large crop,
they say 1t can't be done. I say it can
be done, and am prepared to prove it.
| My method Of planting is in rows three
feet apart, cut to single eyes, and set one
foot apart in the row. Planting in this
way get $1,000 hills to the acre. If the
potatoes only averaged four to the hill
and weighed ounces each, l would have
crop OF 200 bushels per acre, but who
would like to plant, cultivate and har-
vest crop of potatoes when he would
have to dig 60 hills to get bushel of
potatoes. even If there we're 200 bushels
to the acre? planted some seedlings
last spring, their first year Of maturing,
that weighed when ripened 22a4lbs. each
Suppose I had only raised one such
potato to each hill, I would have had $50
bushels to the acre. 1 also planted sets
from three small potatoes that did
not weigh more than two ounces, all told
OF the Worlds fair Seeding raised by
potato specialist in Wisconsin. That re-
ceived only ordinary garden care, and
yielded ut the rate of S47 bushels
per acre, 80 per cent cf which Were of
marketable size. Some of the best
and most successful potato growers of
the country plant closer than do, and
get over 1900 hills to the acre, and
make big money off this crop, even on
the highest priced lands in the states of
Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania, and
1 know OF no reason why we should not
be able to make money out Of potatoes
on land which costs next to nothing. even
if We sell them at 20c. a bushel to starch
factory. And further in the line of big
crops. would mention the case of Mr..
Albert Rose, who won the American
Agriculturist $500 prize for the greatest
crop of potatoes on an acre, with
product of 1000 bushels. and also of Mr..
Cannan of the Rural New Yorker, who is
an eminent authority on potato culture,
who has on his experiment grounds
raised at the rate OF over 1900 bushels
to the acre. In closing l would simply
say that to insure large crop of good
potatoes it is necessary first to have good
seed; second. plant early: third, good
set in every hill, and lastly, clean culture.
An observance of these rules will insure
| crop even in the very driest years in
North Dakota. Yours for starch,
PETER PEARSON.
May 9th.