The farm methods employed in producing more than four hundred bushels of potatoes to the acre on a particular farm (T. E. Martin, West Rush, New York) will illustrate the discussion in this article. The land (good loam) is in a three-year rotation,— wheat, clover, potatoes. Potatoes is the money crop. The land is underdrained. Plowing has been lowered gradually from six to ten or twelve inches. The plowed land is rolled, and then deeply harrowed three or four times. When necessary, parts of the land are rolled again and worked over several times with harrows. Home -mixed fertilizer is drilled in at the rate of 1,600 pounds to the acre, so mixed as to contain 2 per cent nitrogen, 91 per cent phosphoric acid, 15 per cent potash. Counting the mixing, the fertilizer costs about thirty dollars per ton. The soil is considered to be deficient in potash.
The potatoes are planted on a rolled surface in order to secure uniform depth and a good stand. The rows are thirty-six inches apart, seed placed three inches deep, and about eleven inches in the row, requiring sixteen to twenty bushels of seed, cut to one or two eyes. Rows are placed at three feet in order to facilitate spraying. On high-priced truck-garden land, closer planting may be advis able. The tubers are planted with an automatic cutting, dropping, furrowing and covering machine.
The fields are tilled ten to fifteen times. With the good preparation of land and efficient tools, this extent of tilling is not laborious nor expensive. Level culture is practiced, but considerable ridges are formed by the time the vines cover the ground. A riding double-row cultivator and one horse weeder are used. Tillage invariably begins within a week after planting, by following the potato-row lines. The first and second times over, very narrow teeth are used, set deep. The third and fourth tillings are made as soon as the rows can be followed, working deep and very close to the plants. Immediately following the fourth cul tivation, the weeder is used, as a rule, running twice over the field, crosswise and lengthwise, the lengthwise treatment pulling the plants up straight so that subsequent working is not interfered with. Seven-inch side teeth are now used on the cultivator, throw ing a small, sharp ridge directly on each row, burying the weeds. The fields are hand weeded once or twice; and, in this operation, all weak, diseased or prematurely ripen ing potato plants are pulled up, being treated as weeds.
Spraying is accomplished by means of a two wheeled geared machine, developing sixty to eighty pounds pressure and carrying the nozzles ahead of the wheels. On eighteen acres in 1906, there were
used 331 barrels (of fifty-five gallons) of Bordeaux mixture, entailing a cost per acre for spraying of twelve dollars. Careful tests showed that the spraying saved, above its cost, about forty dollars per acre. Spraying began July 2 and was com pleted 10. The area required about one t et of s "Hate of copper in crystals, and fifteen barrels of stone lime. The formula is six pounds 4 sulfate, six pounds of lime, fifty gallons of water; als) two pounds of Paris green per acre are added. Each application is made in opposite directions, tw such sprayings being called a double application. From the time the vines cover the ground. at the beginning of each double application all nozzles are directed to the right, then into the centers twice over and then to the left twice over. This plan requires three double applications, and the spray is directed against the plant from six different posi tions and angles ; at the completion of the sixth spraying, every part of the plant is copper-plated.
The last week in September or the first week in October, while vines are still green, harvesting is begun. A four-horse elevator digger is used. In 1906, the crop on eighteen acres was dug and picked up in six and one-half actual days, the total crop being 7,510 bushels, or 417 bushels to the acre. (Fourteen years previous, when Mr. Martin took the farm, the average yield was sixty bushels per acre. A good part of the above crop was hauled directly to the station and sold at forty cents ; 136 bushels only were sold as low as this ty-eight cents). The heav iest day's work in the harvesting in 1906 was as follows : Twenty-one helpers, little and big ; three and three-fourths acres dug and picked up ; three two-horse rigs drew seventeen loads to cars one mile distant, comprising 1,011 crates ; digging teams drew 283 crates on trucks to the barn ; at six o'clock there were left on wagons and in the field 207 crates ; total 1,501 crates.
A break-down in the digger caused delay of one hour and loss in handling of 200 bushels.
Potato tops are all raked and burned immediately to destroy disease. The ground is worked about twice with the spring-tooth harrow and sown di rectly to wheat, after applying about 400 pounds of home-mixed fertilizer. Eight quarts of choice tim othy seed is drilled to the acre at this time. The following spring, clover or alfalfa, or both, is added.