Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1895-06-13
Points in Potato Culture.

That potatoes will do better and
produce more paying crops on some
soils than others there is little use to
argue. Some soils are naturally adapted
to this crop, while others by artificial
means can be made to produce fair
crops. A heavy clay, naturally cold, is
perhaps the poorest soil, in natural
condition, on which to attempt to grow
profitable crop. Many of our
heaviest clay soils, however, contain all
the elements necessary for successful
potato growing; if the surplus water is
removed by undertaking, planting on
heavy soils, the seed is apt to rot, and
under the most favorable circumstances
the growth will be slow at the time of
year it should be the most rapid.
Perhaps the best potato soil is clay
loan with enough of gravel or sand to
make the ground friable and porous.
In short, good corn soil should be a
good potato soil. The root growth of
potatoes and corn is very similar; both
sending out thousands of fine thread
like rootlets that 60 in every direction
in search of the nourishment and
moisture they need to develop properly.
Without fine porous soil nature is
foiled, and her purposes thwarted, and
the result is a disappointment to the
grower. To plant potatoes in a soil
that is either naturally poor, or has
become SO by excessive cropping, is
another condition of the soil that has
no place in successful potato culture.
l find that to give the question of
manures for the potato fair consider
alton it would make this article too
long. Consider the question of the
manure supply for the potato crop a
most important one, especially since
commercial manures are taking such a
prominent place with SO many of our
most successful potato growers. l
therefore leaye stable and commercial
manures for the potato, for another
article, and give few hints on seed.
No crop pays better for care with the
seed than the potato. / find that the
notion of Gull potato seed is fast dis
appearing Where they do use the
culls for seed it is more matter of
economy than prudence. I fnd, too,
that the man with the least experience
is the one most likely to use culls. In
letter day or two ago, from a gentle
man in Alabama, he said he would not
take even ''second size seed as gift. !"
1 would prefer fair sized potatoes
running from a large hen-egg up to a
fair size, but not the overgrown, or very
largest ones, unless they are well shaped
and smooth. A most essential point
that should bv no means be overlooked
is the premature sprouting of the seed.
No greater reason can be found for the
degeneracy of the potato than the
exhaustion of the seed, from sprouting
enough to injure or break off in hand
ling at planting time. To prevent this
has not sprouted to injure it, should be
the aim of every potato grower who
would receive the largest return for
effort expended. l presume in my
twenty-one years experience up to the
time adopted my present system of
storage two years ago, lost more from
the above cause than all others COM
bined. The time is fast coming when
the general potato grower will give as
much attention to the prime condition
of his seed potatoes as he will to his
corn or other farm crops.
J. II. PALM.