Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1895-08-15
GrowinE and Marketinr Potatoes.

Z. r. Chapman OF Peruville, n. Y,
spoke On planting, c%ultivating and
marketing potatoes. The principal
points brought out we're in the discus
sion, as follows:
Q.-Will every man in the room that
grows potatoes hold up his hand?
A great many hands went up.
Q.-Wili every man in the room that
knows what it costs to grow a bushel of
potatoes hold up his hand?"
Only a few went up.
Mr.. Chapman-Abeut 1876 l was a
drummer on the roa& I left that bust
ness and went to farming. AT the end
of the first year l had made such a sue
cess ~ at it that ! had TO go to keep
ing school to pay the interest on the
debts had contracted. Then ! said to
my wife that we would study the ques-
ton some and see if it were possible
for us 10 make n money. So ] began
studying. l got hold of the statistics of
New York and found the following as
to average yields and value of the
various crops per acre: Corn, value,
$1S.S1; wheat, $12.46; rye, $3.50; oats,
$50; barley, $13.46; hay, $12.37; pota-
toes, $40.92. So l said that l would take
potatoes and keep at it for five years
and if | had then any money / would
continue TO keep at it; if not l would
leave it. The trouble with most men
is they will go into a thing, and the
first year they have a failure they will
60 out of that business and into some
thing else.
Mr.. Chapman then described the proc
esses by which good soil had been
formed in past ages, and declared that
If we did not have the right kind of
soil we must make 1t. We must follow
natures lead, and select only certain
soils for certain crops. The Maker of the
universe does not try to grow cat-tails
on a hillside, but Mr.. Chapman knew
OF men who tried to grow celery there.
The best place to grow a crop of po-
tatoes is on a clover soil. The clover
rots and increases the humus. The only
difference between a desert and a fertile
field is the amount of humus in it. CThis
is a point upon which scientists do not
agree. Plants can be grown on soil that
contains no humus. The first plants
that grew upon the earth certainly had
no humus to assist them, for humus is
formed by the rotting of preceding gem
erations of plants. Experimenters have
grown plants in soil containing no
numuS.-Ed r. R.)
A plant takes it's food only in the
shape of soup. 1t takes a thousand
times as much water as solid matter.
(Mr. Chapman makes a mistake here,
placing the amount entirely too high.
In the Rothamsted experiments it was
shown that cereals and leguminous
crops exhaled from $50 to 800 pounds
of water for every pound of dry sub
stance stored up in the plant. Some
crops doubtless exceed this, but there
is no reason to suppose so great an
amount as 1000 pounds of water is re-
quired.-Ed. F. R.) Cut off the grape
vine in the spring and see the streams
of water running out. Read up and see
how many tons of water a maple tree
will use in a year. So since so much
water is needed for a crop | must get
my soil in shape to hold a large amount
of ate
To do this l pillow in the fall as deeply
as | can. You want deeply plowed soil
for potatoes. You can't get this the first
year, but should pillow a little
deeper each year, so but little
of the subsoil will be brought
in the winter and put it on this
6A0ulA0s i1Oi sc manure Is Ih6 U6SL Vi
anything you can find on your own
farm. In the spring I give it two or
three borrowings. Then | furrow three
feet apart, letting the pillow run as
deeply and making as wide a furrow as
! can. 1 want to change the condition
of the soil by changing the relations
of the soil particles to each other. If /
use chemical fertilizers | put them in
the ftrrnnyS Cow noonln eou thau 10
not get any good from chemical fer
~t-.Izers, but that is because they do not
know how to use these fertilizers. They
take a handful and put it in a hill or
around the stem of the plant. Now that
fertilizer being altogether in one place
amt get in contact with enough water
10 make it useful to the plant, and the
roots of the potatoes can't get at 1t.
The best way to use commercial fertili-
ger is to throw it broadcast in the
around.
Trade Value of Fertilizers-Bulletin
number 81 of the Massachusetts ex-
pertinent station gives the trade value
of chemicals agreed upon by the sta
ton authorities for the present year.
Nitrogen in ammonia is rated at 1875
cents per pound. in nitrate of soda Is
cents, in fish. meat and blood, 10 IL
cents. in ~cottonseed meal IL cents. in
fine ground bone and tankage IL cents,
in coarse bone and tankage 8 cents, in
hair, bone shavings and coarse fish
scraps, Il cents. BY what process dealers
can induce farmers to pay more for
nitrogen in ammonia salts, fish, meat,
blood, fine ground bone and tankage
than they do in a form of nitrate of
soda is hard to understand, except upon
the assumption that farmers scarcely
understand what they are doing when
they pay these rates. Every purchaser
should draw an abiding financial moral
from the decreasing price of nitrogen,
as the material increases in coarseness
until in the form of coarse bone, tank
age, horn shavings, etc. it has a value
of but 5 cents.
An Incredible Horse Story.-A mare
once committed suicide. She had a colt
Of which she was more thar usually
fond. One day the colt fell into an ir-
-s.r1 IT, afk.L 49, t-oVrz tn Ian TAA