s can be obtained by using manures of a
different nature. Market gardeners, many of whom from necessity plant on
the same ground year after year, often use fine old stable manure with
profit. Usually they plant only the earlier varieties, crowd them with
all possible speed, dig early, and sell large and little before they
have time to rot, thus clearing the ground for later-growing vegetables.
Thus grown, potatoes are of inferior quality, and the yield is not
always satisfactory. Flavor, however, is seldom thought of by the hungry
denizens of our cities, in their eagerness to get a taste of something
fresh.

Market gardeners will find great benefit from the use of wood-ashes,
lime, and the phosphates. Sprinkle superphosphate in the hill at the
rate of two hundred pounds per acre; mix it slightly in the soil with an
iron rake or potato-hook, then plant the seed. Just before the last
hoeing, sprinkle on and around the hill a large handful of wood-ashes,
or an equal quantity of lime slacked in brine as strong as salt will
make it.

But for the generality of farmers, those who grow only their own supply,
or those who produce largely for market, no other method of preparing
the soil is so good, so easy, and so cheap as the following; it requires
time, but pays a big interest: Seed down the ground to clover with wheat
or oats. As soon as the grain is off, sow one hundred and fifty pounds
of plaster (gypsum) per acre, and keep off all stock. The next spring,
when the clover has made a growth of two inches, sow the same quantity
of plaster again. About the tenth of July, harrow down the clover,
driving the same direction and on the same sized lands you wish to plow;
then plow the clover neatly under about seven inches deep. Harrow down
the same way it was plowed, and immediately sow and harrow in two
bushels of buckwheat per acre. When it has grown two inches, sow plaster
as before; and when the buckwheat has grown as large as it will, harrow
down and plow under about five inches deep. This, when cross-plowed in
the spring sufficiently deep to bring up the clover-sod, is potato
ground _first-class in all respects_.

It is hardly supposable that this mode of preparation of soil would meet
with favor among all farmers. There is a parsimonious class of
cultivators who would consider it a downright loss of time, seed, and
labor; but any one who will take the trouble to investigate, will find
that these same parsimonious men neve