and it naturally keeps the potatoes from being too moist, and they are often injured thereby. I have found that three feet each way is the most proper distance to insure a good crop; I plant three common sized potatoes in the hill; it is no use to cut them: if cut small, the vines come up small and weak, grow fast and fall down.”
The following method we take from an able writer in the Louisville Journal, signing himself “Grazier:”
“The ground selected for potatoes should be dry, where no surface-water will rest. It should be rich; if not naturally so, it must be made so by a sufficient quantity of good manure. It should be plowed twice, and at least twelve inches deep. After the first plowing, it should be harrowed and cross harrowed; and after the second plowing, harrowed again, and if not very friable and free from clods it should then be rolled. The mold cannot be too fine, as on the depth of the plowing, and fineness of the earth, depend the retention of that moisture so indispensable to the health and maturing of all bulbous roots in particular. The ground thus prepared, should then be opened off in drills, three feet from the centre of one to the centre of the other, and, if practicable, running north and south. When opened, if manure is to be applied, it must then be hauled in carts; the horse going down between the drills, the bed of the cart will cover two drills, where the manure can be pulled out at intervals, in quantity sufficient, not only for the two drills described, but for one on each side in addition; all of which one hand, following with a fork, can easily distribute and spread in the four drills.
“This done, the ground is ready for the seed. I shall first describe the whole of the cultivation and harvesting necessary, and then speak of the seed and its preparation separately. The seed should be dropped in the manure, twelve inches apart, and as quickly as a drill is planted, the plow should follow and cover it in. The double mold-board plow, which is the proper implement for the business,
will cover two drills by going once up and once down the field; if the single mold-board plow is used, it will of course cover but one drill by the same operation. When your ground is thus gone over, your land will all be in high drills, and can rest so for about one week, when you must take a two-horse harrow, and harrow your drills across, leaving your field as level as before your drills were opened. There is no danger, as some would suppose, of disturbing your seed.
“In a few days, when you can see your plants distinctly above ground, from one end of your drills to the other, you must take your one-horse plow, and go up and down each drill, running the land side of your plow as close to the plant on each side as you safely can, throwing the earth away from it, which operation will leave your field in raised drills between your plants. In a few days after this you take your double mold-board plow, and go down the centre of the blank drills, covering all your plants nearly out of sight, observing as you go along that the weight of earth is thrown against, and not on, the plants. Then, in some days after, when your plants are well over the top of your drills, take your scuffle, an implement not unlike your cultivator in this country, and for which the cultivator can be substituted, and go over your whole field between the drills, giving the earth a good stirring, and not be afraid of encroaching a little at each side on the drill. At this stage, a boy should follow the scuffle, and pull up any weeds that appear on the top or sides of the drills. In a few days after this, when your plants are strong and well up, you go down the centre between the drills, with your double mold-board plow, the wings well apart, and throw the earth well up to the plants. This must sometimes finish the cultivation, if the vines have spread and are closed too much, but generally the vines will allow it, and the crop be much benefited by one more scuffling; but this time take particular care not to disturb the drill at the bottom, as the
bulbs are now forming and spreading; then gently run your double mold-board plow through the whole field again, narrowing the wings of it, which will have the effect of adding the earth, and compressing it to the bottom of the drill, where the bulbs are forming, rather than throwing it up to the stalk at top, where there is sufficient already. This finishes the cultivation.
“To prepare the seed you must select well-shaped, even potatoes, not too small nor too large. Cut them, leaving one good eye at least to every set; prepare them from two to three weeks at least, before you plant; and each day, as you cut, roll your sets in pulverized lime, and spread them on the barn floor to dry: when dry, heap them in a corner till taken out to plant. If this plan is pursued, and the ground selected and prepared as directed, you may rest satisfied that so sure as the laws of nature are invariable, and that like effects follow like causes, as sure will a good and sound crop of potatoes be produced in this climate with no variation in the result, except what may be occasioned by the vicissitudes of the season.
“Ten tons of potatoes, two thousand two hundred and forty pounds to the ton, is considered a fair crop in Ireland. Twelve tons an extra one—equal to three hundred and seventy bushels the first, and four hundred and forty-four bushels the second, allowing sixty pounds to the bushel, which I have found to be about the average weight of a bushel here. I have grown four crops of potatoes in this country, in two different situations and latitudes (six acres the smallest quantity cultivated any season). Each crop was treated in every particular as here described, and in three instances out of the four, I got a little over four hundred measured bushels to the acre. The fourth crop was only about three hundred and fifty bushels to the acre, caused by the peculiarity of the season, which produced an almost entire failure with my neighbors, under their management.”