Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1912 — EXCELLENT METHODS GIVEN FOR IMPROVING YIELD OFPOTATOES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

EXCELLENT METHODS GIVEN FOR IMPROVING YIELD OFPOTATOES

Farmer Should Carefully Go Over Patch and Select Tboso Hills That Have Tubers of Good Size—Treat Seed by Themselves and Plant in Separate Patch for Best Results.

(By PROF. L. R. WALDRON, North Dakota.) It is a common belief that if we purchase a variety of potatoes from a seedsman that we have secured just one variety. This is true in a measure. If dhe seedsman is reliable, he will send potatoes that are uniform in color, depth of eyes, earliness of maturing, and other qualities. But unless these particular potatoes have been pedigreed, then we have not received one thing byt many. The farmer can demonstrate this fact to his own satisfaction. At digging time let him lay off a portion of a row containing 100 hills. In order to show this, each hill must have come froth only one piece of seed. The 100.hijls are dug and the tubers of each hill are kept by themselves on top of the hill. The products of the 100 hills are now ready to be studied. At first glance the hills may appear to run very uniformly. A little closer view will reveal the fact that about the only thing that is uniform is that they are all potatoes. The first hill has one large one, two medium-sized ones and half-a-dozen small ones. The next hill has one medium-sized one and several small ones. Perhaps the next hill has three or four good-sized ones. Another hill has a solitary tuber, but of good size. Perhaps another hill has nothing but little runts. Thus it goes through the 100 hills. The ordinary farmer will pick up the tubers from all of the hills and put them all together. He does this complacently and with satisfaction. His fathers did it before him and all of his neighbors do it. Why should mot he? Late in winter, when he begins to read the seed catalogs, he wonders why on earth, or under it, he cannot raise such splendid crops of potatoes as he sees pictured. Now, thart is the point I am getting at; our variety is not a unit. In our 100 hills that we have dug, close study might reveal the presence of at least ten strains or varieties, instead of the one that we thought we had.

The hill that bore the little runts has the runt character as a habit. It is going to persist for years, and every time we plant seed of that strain we will know to a certainty that we win harvest little potatoes. The hill that produces one or two large and several small ones, is a common feature of potato fields. The hftl that bore three or four good-sized tubers is the one to fasten our eyes on. That is the hill that has ability and the one that we should get next to. We will assume that we have three tubers to every hill and that the total weight of the three tubers is one and one-half pounds. There is nothing absurd in this, for often an individual tuber will weigh more. We will further assume i that our rows are three and one-half feet apart and that our hills are two feet apart in the row. This is open planting, probably more open than is commonly practiced. At this rate of planting there will be 6,200 hills per acre, assuming nearly a perfect stand. With one and onehalf pounds per hill, we would have a field of 165 bushels per acre, a yield worth striving for by the majority of farmers. Now it may be that the hill with the three or four good tubers will not, breed true, but the chances are that It will. The offspring of the hill is almost certain to produce a certain percentage of small tubers, but we may count upon it that it will produce a lesser percentage of small tubers than the average hill. What a farmer should do at potatodigging time is to dig a fair-sized patch, leaving each hill by Itself. After the patch is dug he should fully go over the patch find select out those hills that have few tubers of good size. The tubers from those hills should be sacked by themselves and laid away for seed for the year following.

If he is particular he may not be able to find more than ten hills to his liking,. J. In the springtime these should be treated by themselves and planted in a separate patch. The second year’s product from the ten hills will be sufficient to plant quite a piece of ground, perhaps as much as the farmer desires. ■ If the farmer wants to follow a method even better and more accurate than this, he should plant each of the ten hills-in a littl/ plat by itself. This requires that each hill will be sacked separately at planting time. If the ten plants show up of about equal value and all good, it is not necessary to keep them longer separate, but the product of the ten plats may be sacked together and saved to plant the main patch the year following. If two or three of the ten plats are off, these should be discarded and the good plats saved. If an occasional farmer follows the method here laid out, he will soon find that his neighbors will be after him for seed and they will be willing to pay him a bonus for them.

This Field of Potatoes Yielded at Rate of 375 Bushels Per Acre.