VALUABLE DETAILS OF THE CULTURE OF EARLY POTATOES----"SECOND CROP "SEED.

BOUT Memphis, the potatoes planted are Early Rose, Peerless, Early Ohio and Triumph. After several years trial, however, we find Triumph to be the earliest and most prolific potato, and one that will stand more uncongenial weather than any other. In fact, it has never failed. It yields large crops with exceedingly few unmarketable tubers, and it is the only potato that can be absolutely depended upon for 'a second crop.

We use for seed only those potatoes that are too small for market, and only our own home-grown second-crop seed. The value placed upon them is shown by the fact that the New York Early Rose potatoes could be bought last spring for $2.50 per barrel, while we sold our home-grown Triumph for $10 and $12 per barrel.

Any time from the first of January to March 15th, if our ground is in good order, we plant our seed potatoes. not tilled and drained like our more northern lands, hence we select land with as good natural drainage as possible. After breaking up the ground thoroughly with a two-horse plow, we harrow and "plank " or "plane" it. This plank or drag is made -shaped, 10 feet wide and 6 feet long to point of the /\, and the planks are put on like the weather-boarding of a house. This implement more thoroughly pulverizes the clods than a roller, which merely presses the clods unbroken into the soft ground. The ground is now laid off in furrows 3½ feet apart, making the furrows 8 or 10 inches wide and as shallow as possible. The fertilizer used here is cotton seed meal. Its action upon the potatoes is quicker than stable manure or any commercial fertilizer we have been able to obtain, and the potatoes are always smooth and clean. Eight hundred to one thousand five hundred pounds is used to the acre, but the more meal, the more potatoes. In distributing this meal, where machinery is not used, the men take a bucket of meal and scatter it thickly in the furrow, sacks of meal being put in different parts of the field for convenience.

With a little experience, these men easily guess at the proper quantity.

Some cut their potatoes 10 or 12 days before planting rolling the pieces in dry earth which they have prepared under a shed, so as to "keep in the sap" and to "heal them up," as they term it. My own plan, however, is to have cutters at work the day of planting, and plant as fast as cut. I cut two eyes to a piece and put two pieces in a place, twelve inches apart. After having dropped the potatoes in the furrow on the top of the meal, I cover them by running between the furrows with a Planet Jr. horse hoe with the side shovels turned out, so as to throw about three or four inches of dirt on the potatoes. In this way, with one man and mule, six to eight acres a day can be covered.

The heavy work is now done. We wait until we see the potato sprouts breaking through the ground, when a one-horse V-harrow is dragged over the top of the ridges. This breaks the crust that has formed and gives the sprout a chance to come through. When the plant is up about six inches, I use a one-horse cultivator with the narrow 1¼ inch blade. These narrow blades enable me to run close up to the plant without disturbing the seed potato, at the same time relieving the work of hoeing weeds. After this the crop is left for a few days, when a little dirt is thrown up to the plant either with a turning plow or horse hoe. I prefer the latter. A week or ten days later, should the weather have been at all favorable, the final working, or as it is termed down here, "laying by," is given the crop. This is done by hilling as much dirt as necessary up to the plant. The Early Rose grows in a bunch directly under the root, while the Triumph spreads very much ; hence a much wider furrow or bed is required for them than the Rose.

We now await results. About the first to tenth of June we commence harvesting the crop. The digging is done with a two-horse plow. No potato smaller than a duck's egg is used for market. The small potatoes are kept for seed purposes. The average yield, on good ground and with plenty of cotton seed meal, is 250 bushels per acre. The cost of production per barrel of 2¼ bushels, barrelled and headed up ready for market, is $1.25, and the average selling price is $2 to $2.25, while in many years $3 and $4 is obtained.

Thus far I have spoken only of what is termed our first crop our second crop being by far the more valuable, it is grown entirely for seed purposed.

Tennessee. Joe. L. Ullathorne.

Potatoes In The South #1

Mr. Ullathorne's article (p. 168) shows how rapidly the new practice of growing seed potatoes is extending in the south. Only a few years ago we thought that it was absolutely essential to get northern grown seed for the early potato crop. Now we know that potatoes raised in autumn here from northern seed planted in spring give us our best seed, but I do not think it advisable to extend the process further. Enough northern grown potatoes should be planted in spring to furnish seed for the late crop, or deterioration will set in. All the northern potatoes we are now getting here (March 15) are badly sprouted and unfit for table use, but I am eating N. C. grown potatoes dug in December last, which have not started an eye and which, upon cooking, show by their dry and mealy condition that the starch is still unchanged. It will not be long before the northern markets will seek a spring table supply of these magnificent potatoes to take the place of the clammy sprouted potatoes of spring time, and a new demand will set up for a southern product. Most of our growers plant this late crop too early.

We had potatoes last fall which did not appear above ground until after the middle of September, and yet made a better crop than some planted in July. The proper time for planting here is 15th to 20th of August. - W. F. Massey, N. C. Experiment Station.