The Forrest City times., 1894-08-17
Potato Culture In Arkansas

M"hy years ago the writer hereof had occasion to visit the valley of the Red ,"er ot the North and report the acreag,
 III wheat cultivation on the Dalyrimnla ana Grandn wheat farms. IL was befors Mulhatton's star had risen to shine so gioriously, and the readers of in. article who had farming places of forty in .,s,h,,
 a1ies ., anu had their small farms cut up in- .noe to ten acre ields, and to whom '"eNe acres or any kind of grain was big crop as Is true with many in the older sec uons or our country, simply and plainly caiied us the king of liars, although we had spoken truly regarding it. So doubtless lhere Will be readers of the Press who have been raising sweet potatoes in small way all their lives and to whom bushel is a large quantity to bed out for slips for planting. who, when we tell them that we can point them to potato grower who has bedded 800 bushels for slips for his planting this year will say we have not simply stretched but rent assunder the truth. And yet it will not reduce the num- per or bushels by so much as one. however stoutiy they may refuse to believe it.
 Most of our readers are somewhat familiar with the history of the Pool fruit and po- tato farm and know that Mir. Pool does nothing by halves. When he goes after premiums at our county, district or State fairs he carries home blue ribbons enough to decorate one side of his liy- ing room. It is the way he is built. He can't help it. So when he raises potatoes there IS no half way work about it and for his sweet potato crop this year he has in bed and growing nicely 800 bushels for sets or slips; This is one side of his potato patch. On tue other side will be from 400 to 800 bushels of Irish potatoes planted.
 And between the two ends of this patch he expects to grow thirty, fifty, seventy. yes, and with luck, 80 900 bushels of potatoes. Mir. Pool is no uncertain farmer. His
 land always has its seed time, that is his. and it's certain harvest: that is Gods. Like Paul, Pool plants and God gives gloriously. For nine successive years. without fertilizng or changing his seed MT. Pool has grown immensely large crops
 Of potat0es-twO crops each year. He plants in February for early spring ship ments and for seed for his main crop which is grown in the fal His best re- suits are obtained by digging the spring crops when the potatoes are about two- thirds grown, letting them lie in the sun till they are turned green, then putting them away for the July planting to be harvested in November, before frost. Po- tatoes grown in this way keep all winter and till the following season in excellent condition. The day we visited Mir. Pool May 3, he was shipping car of Missouri red potatoes to Fort Smith for which he was receiving 20 cents at Ozark his home shipping point and that day received two telegramS from Little Rock asking quota tions on potatoes by the carload but was
 unable to supply them. He said he could sell twenty car loads in the next thirty days if he had them. After examining the potatoes careflly we were impresse with their fresh, sound condition and re- marked concerning the absence of all wilt ing and sprouting and of even the first and slightest indications of decay, whereup Mir. Pool informed us that he never lost any potatoes by rot and that he could keep them year, or longer and they would come out as fresh and sound as when he put them up. The potatoes we saw had been kept in a cellar. But Mir. Pool says that without the cellar he can store 50, 900
 bushels of potatoes in one long large pile cover them eigtheen inches deep with earth and throw on pine tops or blanks to keep the rain from washing the earth off and they will keep till they are wanted the aext year and never loose one by decay. The cost of raising potatoes with MT. Pool varies from cents in large crops to 10 cents when the yield is less abundant.
 This is not counting rent of land. His crop usually returns him net profit of S49 to $60 per acre, though often going as high as Sl0O and some times running as low as S20. He ships sometimes as far north as Buffalo, N. Y., though his usual shipping points are Kansas City, Omaha, Council Bluffs and Chicago and other less distant cities. Mir Pool says that all the table lands in that country will produce as fine crops of apples, peaches and pototoes as Lis does for 1t IS all identical in character and thousands of acres of the wild land can be bought at from S2 50 to S5 per acre. While the i'm proved can be purchased at from $5 to $l5 owing to the improvements, distance from town and other conditions. That every body will stop mortgaging their liberties
 three to eight months ahead in order raise
 A cotton crop which will bring them out at the end of the year a little in debt, we do not expect. But if any Of these articles awakens an ambition in even one father and induces him to lead his family out or a worse than Egyptian bondage and turn some worn out cotton farm into potato patch or peach orchard, and with the ex- ercise of a little more intelligence ana great deal less muscle. he is enabied-as he most certainly will be-to give his chil- dren an education instead of the backache lowing to the white king, the Press will feel that it has not spent its dollars for