People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1893 — Raising Potatoes. [ARTICLE]

Raising Potatoes.

I’hlludolphia Inquirer. Taking one year with another, potatoes are a profitable crop if one has good land upon which to grow them. Even if the land is not quite what might be desired, a little effort expended in bringing up its condition will be repaid, and it will not take long to get it in good shape for potatoes. Underdraming and clovering are the two methods by which this may be accomplished. If the land is underdrained it will never lie so thoroughly saturated with water as to prevent deep freezing. This will open the subsoil, and the clover roots will reach down for it in the dry time, which always comes in the second year of clover growth. After the second year if the clover is allowed to grow until the middle of May, there will be some green growth to plow under, and if the ground is kept well tilled this will provide mois’ture enough to keep potatoes growing through a pretty severe drought. The rotting of the green clover and of the succulent clover roots increases the supply of water, and the lower roots below the furrows are a ctiannel through which water in the subsoil rises to the surface. • Take care to prepare your land so as to conserve moisture and give good cultivation. and.a profitable potato crop is as easy to produce as anything you can try.