The Republican journal., 1912-01-11
Potato Growing.

To THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL: There
is little danger of overriding the potato bust
ness after two facts are we'll understood;
beast and especially as pork growing food;
and for cattle and hens it is superior to any
other root 1t should be understood that po-
tatoes alone are not balanced ration, and
other food should go with the potatoes. Pota-
to-fed hogs yield more lard and less pork, and
the pork is not as firm as from corn fed hogs.
The flesh or meaty part of hog fed on pota-
toes is more interlaced with lard or fatty
streaks than with the lean meat of corn fed
hogs. and this meat from potato feeding is
tenderer, richer and more juicy than the meat
of corn fed hogs. Evidently the world is just
beginning to discover the great food value of
potatoes. Corn is of great value, either as
food or money crop, but acre for acre. pota
toes outrank corn, both as food and money
crop, and the labor and expense on a single
crop is not materially fferent; but corn does
not exhaust the soil potatoes do. Potatoes
leave practically no humus in the soil, and this
is the other important feature of the pvtato
business. Formerly it supposed that
commercial fertilizers supplied to the soil
about all that the potato takes out but this is
far from the truth.
In raising hay, the stubble left on top of the
ground and the roots left under ground excel
in amount the hay that was taken off, and this
stubble and root together make an immense
amount of humus to enrich the soil. Hence,
hay can be grown on the same land to the end
of time by the use of small annual supply of
commercial fertilizer.
Many potato growers after digging the roots
and selling them then rake off all the tops and
put them in some waste place and burn them,
so that what little humus they might have
made is taken off.
To supply the humus to soil exhausted by
potatoes good farmers grow a crop of clover
alternately, moving the first crop, leaving
high stubble, then letting second crop partly
mature and then blowing it under. By this
method Of alternating clover with potatoes
the soil can be kept up indefinitely. In fact,
the soil is materially improved if a heavy,
deep roofing clover is used. Alsike is no good,
because that has only a small root and that
close to the surface.
On the same principle that big fish eat the
little ones, vegetation thrives best when it is
fed upon its own kind. Decaying potatoes are
the best known potato fertilizer, and the next
best is the decaying roots and stocks of the
grasses. Trees thrive best on rotting wood,
and rotting wood is very good humus for the
grasses, vegetables and berries; but decaying
wood, especially rapidly growing soft wood,
seems to be rather coarse food for small
plants.
One should keep in mind the distinction be-
tween plant food and growing force, for there
is q wide difference between them. Growing
force is always ammonia in some form, and is
of greatest value when it can be slowly given
off from decaying substance, which substance
is itself plant food.
The basis of all odors is ammonia Plants
are easily killed with too much ammonia. To
get at the standard volume or force of ammo
mia best for plant growth, take some dry earth
in your hand and moisten it with water and
then smell of it. The odor is very mild and
does not sting ones nose in the least. An
odor that stings, overloads or seriously offends
ones sense Of smell, is too strong for healthy