WAUPACA REPUBLICAN

February 16, 1883

 

The Potato Question

 

            In the papers last spring a potato was advertised called the “Mammoth Pearl”.  The catalogue said that when cut open it was pearl-white and never hollow, that in spite of bugs it produced an enormous crop, etc.  I got two bushel for seed and cutting, found them coarse and watery - in some cases a black core in center - in fact so like Peerless that I planted them in adjoining rows to Peerless but could see no difference in the tops or yield; neither had blossoms, and I had more trouble to keep the bugs off these two kinds than any other, and while they did not yield over 7 to 8 bushels from one bushel of seed, I had some that yielded 60 fold with same land and cultivation, which I shall be happy to describe if the printer should think of sufficient interest to print to be the means of inducing more of our farmers to describe their experience.      

                                                                                                            R.H. BOWMAN.

My Experience.

            My object in stating my experience in raising potatoes is not so much to instruct but to get others of more experience to give a better way than mine.  I have also tried different kinds to see if some will be more productive or raised with less labor than others.  Last spring I had a piece of poor sandy land.  It was covered with oak and hazel brush.  I cut the brush and grubbed the stumps; burned the brush and plowed with a common plow, and harrowed over, then I plowed furrows thirty inches apart and planted across those furrows in rows four feet apart, dropping a single potato in each furrow.  The kind I planted on this land are called Burbank - a long, white, productive, late kind.  I think it took from ten to twelve bushels to plant an acre.  We covered with hoe, but leveled as best we could with harrow, and when the tops were through the surface we cultivated as best we could among the sods with small plow, and when ripe dug with flat fork, getting about one hundred and fifty bushels of good potatoes per acre.  There were but few small ones, but there were some eaten by grub and some rotten near where we had burned brush, but then it was here where the largest potatoes grew.

            The adjoining land was also dry and sandy but had been broken some years ago; but for the last three years grew nothing but sorrel and mullen.  We plowed and planted same distances as above stated, but we cultivated with a corn cultivator until the tops began to blossom, then we took a single shovel with wings, hilled the wide rows and when the bugs got troublesome we killed them by dusting them with one part Paris green to about twenty of plaster, but the early Ohio potatoes did not need any.  In August the Early Ohio was ripe and we dug them about 150 bushels to the acre.  There were perhaps five bushels of small potatoes but no rotten ones.  The Early Rose about a week later was dug, and yielded 150 bushels to the acre, but there was about twenty bushels of small ones.  The Climax (better known here as J.D. Scotch White) were next ripe and yielded 140 bushels to the acre.  Some were too large and others too small.  They are bad to dig, the largest being farthest from the stem.  The large ones are at times a little hollow, but never rotten.  It is on the whole a much better potato than the Peerless, which in some respects it resembles.  The Snow Flake were next ripe and they did not yield over eighty or ninety bushels to the acre, and they have too many small ones, and some years they rot worse than other kinds do.  It may be proper to remark that when the black spots came on the leaves of potatoes last summer the papers were full of predictions that the tubers would become diseased.  I think when potatoes rot they have been stored away too damp or have lain in the wet ground too long, for it is well known that when you plant them in wet ground they will rot and not grow.  While urging to store away dry I must caution you not to leave them exposed too long to the heat of the sun before starting or they will rot.  It is also best not to expose them too long to the light as it turns them green and the taste of them bitter.  I will now state the result of experiments on a small scale with some, to me, new kinds on land under plow twenty-five years, manured each year.  The seed cut to single eyes and planted eighteen inches apart and in rows three feet apart, the cultivation to be done with a hoe, and each vine hilled up.

            The Blue Victor seemed to yield the most.  Six potatoes yielded two bushels.

            The Beauty of Hebron - one pound yielded sixty-two bushels to the acre.    Some say this will take the place of early Rose, which it rather resembles; anyway it will be splendid for gardens.  It is early and productive and their profuse blossoms look like a perfect flower garden.

            The Belle from one pound of seed produced fifty-eight.  In appearance it is not unlike the above, but it is a late potato and slow to grow.  I was afraid it would not amount o much, but on digging I found but few small ones.  Some say this will take the place of Peach Blow.

            The La Plume is a more vigorous grower.  One pound produced sixty-two but there was quite a number of small ones, and I think the others too large and eyes too deep.  The skin is red.

            The Mahopic is also a late potato, red, longer than Early Rose, looks clean, but apt to rot.

            The Magnum Bonum is a dull, white produce, so small that it is not worthy of notice.

            I also tried here some of those so-called Mammoth Pearl, sand some othe5 kind of white ones that were mixed with them, which had blossoms.  The Pearl had none.  Some hills yielded well, but the seed being large and the eyes few the yield was small in proportion to seed used.  I think that in planting the single eyes that one pound would plant one rod of land or about three bushels to the acre.  But then cutting, planting, hoeing and digging is a great deal more work than planting whole and further apart, and the yield in each case about the same per acre.

            Now, Brother Granger, I have told you all I know about growing potatoes.  Will you tell me what is the cause of scabby potatoes.  Some say a yellow wire-worm; others that it is a smaller parasite. Do you think it could be got rid of by fall plowing or the application of lime or salt; or by changing crops, for instance clover?

                                                                                                R.H.B.