The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-09-09
Second Crop of Irish Potatoes De.
serve Attention From Southern
Farmers.

Farmers.
1 wish my farmer friends could all
have a look at our Irish potato patch,
writes F. T. Merriam in Southern
Ruralist. Not that it is so extraordi-
nary, but in order that they might see
the difference between potatoes grown
from Northern seed and those grown
from second-crop Southern seed. 1t
looks as thought we had two varieties
of potato in the field; but the fact is
they are all of them Bliss Red Tri-
umph.
This is the second season we have
planted the Southern second-crop seed,
and we are so we'll pleased that after
this we will have nothing else. Why in
the world should Southern farmers
and gardeners pay out. thousands of
dollars for Northern grown seed po-
tatoes at many dollars an acre?
In order that the reader may more
fully understand my position 1 will
give a brief history of my experience
with this Southern grown crop seed.
In 1899 we had fair crop of early
potatoes grown from Northern seed.
There were, however, a good many
small and unstable tubers. We paid
these very little attention except pick
them up and spread them out thinly
August l noticed that they had be-
come somewhat wilted and green in
appearance, and as / had a piece of
land which was naturally rather damp
and which was in good condition at the
time, l opened some burrows about
three feet apart and after clipping off
a little of the seed end of the potato,
dropped them in these rows rather
quickly. They came up fairly well and
grew nicely until cut down by the
frost the first of November.
We had only a small patch and the
yield was not large, but the potatoes
were very pretty and a nice medium
size for seed. We put them up in one
end of our sweet potato bank and left
them undisturbed until the following
spring, when they came out in good
shape. There was not more than two
or three rotten potatoes in the whole
lot and when we cut them to plant not
an eye had sprouted.
Up to this time the early Irish potato
crop with us had not been what con-
sidered a success; but last year they
paid nicely. They can grow better
seed, too, and were the first potatoes
put on our market by local gardeners.
And the best part of 1t all was there
were no little potatoes, or so few that
we had none with which to plant a
second crop. In reality l should have
haved some of the large potatoes to
plant this crop, but potatoes were in
good demand last summer and they
were sold before realized that we had
nothing with which to plant our Sec
ond crop. So this spring. 1901, we were
again forced to buy seed.
Well. we planted partly Maine grown
stock and as good luck would have it
were enabled to secure some Southern
second crop seed for the remainder Of
our field. Now the Northern grown
seed were somewhat sprouted when we
planted them, the Southern seed not at
all. The Northern seed began coming
up first but the Southern grown seed
gave us the best stand. in fact, a per-
feet stand. The land where these po-
tatoes were planted is identically the
same and they were fortified alike At
the present writing the potatoes from
the Southern grown seed are so much
ahead OF their Northern neighbors that
they look like different variety, and
viii undoubtedly make much the larg-
est CROP.
/ am induced 10 write about this mat
ter now in order that our friends who
have early potatoes may allow some OF
them 10 become thoroughly ripe before
digging, and then save them to plant