St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1902-01-25
FARMER AND PLANTER.
THE LATE IRISH POTATO.
Advantages of Growing the Late
IFich Potato In the south Not to
BE Overostimated.

| Advantages of Growing the Lats
Irich Potato In the south Not to
| BE Oversstimated.
The many and great advantages Of
the late Irish potato crop south can
hardly be overestimated. In the first
place potatoes dug in November will
keep perfectly all winter in barrels
OF boxes in a closed house. The tenn
perature may go down to freezing,
| but If the barrels are covered there
will be little If any danger of injury.
In fact Irish potatoes need to be
kept cool. We have kept them per-
fectly piled up under shed and COW
cred with only about one foot OF pine
straw.
This wonderful keeping quality OF
the late Irish potato enables the
grower to market them to advantage.
There is at least six months In which
to dispose of the crop, and the grow
er can watch the market and place
them when the price is good. An
other advantage Of this crop is that
our southern home market through
out the winter, is the best in tho
country for Irish potatoes. The price
last winter in Atlanta ranged from IS
cents to 81 per bushel, while at pres
ent, owing to the short crop north,
they are bringing $1.40 per bushel.
The south is a large consumer OF
this vegetable, and throughout the
winter the supply has come principal
ly from the north and west. The city
of Atlanta alone consumes between
two and three carloads day during
this period.
Outside of the market and keeping
qualities, we have the further adj
vantage of being able to grow these
potatoes on land which has already
made crop of something else. This
wear we planted them after early cab
bage and turnips. The land for these
crops had been heavily manfred with
heterogeneous fertilizers, and after the
cabbages were off we replaced and
worked the land down fine. It was not
necessary here to use ammonia on the
potatoes, there being already an
abundance of this element in the soil.
The land was of a sandy character.
and on such land potash always
shows marked effect, especially on
a root crop like potatoes. We there
fore only used acid phosphate and
muriate of potash in preparing our
fertilizer, and applied it at the rate
Of 800 pounds per acre. A fertilizer
for this crop on such land should
analyze about 10 per cent. phosphoric
acid and per cent potash. For the
early potato crop the fertilizer should
contain ammonia also, about three or
four per cent. and for the late crop,
where the land is deficient in this ele-
ment.
We are digging our potatoes now
the 18th of November-and they are
the finest / ever saw. One of the best
hills produced from one vine ten
large potatoes weighing nearly one
half pound each, or four and one-half
pounds for the ten. This means,
with a perfect stand, over five hum
dred bushels per acre. Unfortunately
for us our stand is very poor owing
to the exceptionally wet weather in
August which rotted the seed before
it had time to sprout. In spite of all
this, however, our potatoes are turn
ing out close to two hundred bushels
per acre. This may seem somewhat
exaggerated, but when one hill will
produce four and half pounds of
potatoes, and we have great many
just as good, you can easily figure
what the yield will be per acre.
There are thousands of acres of
sandy loan land all over the south,
on which these late potatoes can be
grown to perfection with proper at
tention and fertilizer. I am firmly
convinced that the time is not far
distant when the south will grow all |
of her Irish potatoes, both early and
late as well.
The potato referred to in this In |
stance is not the late potato usually |
known as the second crop, but late
variety called the Lookout Mountain, |
which produces but one crop in a sea-
son, the seed being kept over and !
planted the Goth of July and the 18th |
of August. The second crop of such |
varieties as Early Rose, Bliss
Triumph, Early Ohio and others can
also be made very remunerative and |
deserves more attention from our
southern farmers, especially for seed
purposes for the next spring planting.
This second crop seed is much supe-
rior to the northern grown stock III.
that they produce fewer small pota-
toes, are earlier and the vines are
much more thrifty.
Side by side in the same field this
year the northern and southern
grown seed produced potatoes which
looked like different varieties, al
though they were Of the same sort.
Altogether, the late Irish potato at
the south furnishes field for enter
prise worthy of the earnest attention
of our farmers.-F. j. Merriam, in
Texas Farm and Ranch.
WHY CLOVER OFTEN FAILS.