Potato Soil01
Waupaca Record
ALL SIL IS NOT GOOD POTATO SOIL
Use Only Large Potatoes for Seed
The Logic of Using These Potatoes for Seed
All soil is not good potato soil. We have a good soil in nearly all farms in a greater or less amount. The ideal soil is alluvial bottom. Our second bottom soil is fee from alkali hard pan and gumbo, and does not have standing water upon it. Now this soil is more or less perfect on each farm along the sloughs and valleys. Our side hill soil is not good potato soil. Good potato land must be nearly level, sloping just sufficiently to carry off the surplus water. Potatoes are great drinkers and subsoiling will help this crop very much. So plow deep in the fall so that all winter moisture may go into the soil and then again in the spring.
No matter
what kind of potatoes you plant use the large ones for seed and if you have not
enough large ones sort them and plant large first on one side of the patch and
from them select your seed for the next year.
Never plant the small ones unless you wish to invite a failure and have
your seed run out. Reason a moment. There are just as many eyes on a small one as
on a large one, and if you cut it up in one-eye pieces, as you should, the
pieces will be very small and will not provide sufficient starch to give the
plant a good growth. If you make the
pieces large you take in several eyes and again weaken the plant as the piece
has to provide sustenance for several sprouts in place of one. How many of you throw a handful of corn into
a hill and then expect to raise big ears and lots of them from such
planting? As in corn culture you, when
you only want two or three stalks, so in potato culture you want but few stalks
from a hill, to secure best results.
This I get by taking large potatoes, cutting up to single eye pieces,
and putting a single piece in a hill. I
drill them in rows which are four feet apart and two feet apart in rows. As to depth, don’t plow them in for that puts
the seed down on hard soil. Potatoes
grow down from the seed and should have plenty of soft soil in which to
grow. They should be deep enough so that
they may be harrowed without disturbing the pieces of potatoes.
Dig as soon as ripe; all crops should be gathered as soon as ripe.
With the combination of good soil, plenty of water, good seed, and faithful labor, with a good kind of potatoes we can raise them to ship to those who ignore the above common sense points in potato culture. – Northwester Agriculturist.