Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (May 14, 1914)
a HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION 15 Growing Good Potatoes in the Pacific Northwest Some Ideal on the Homely ' ' Spud' ' by Men Who Know Whereof They Write. (! This is the tint of a series of artioles discussing potato growing. By 0. M. MOBBIS, Horticulturist; J. G. HALL, Plant Pathologist, and M. A TOTHEBS, Aast, Entomologist IN THE United States as a whole the I potato crop ranks sixth in value. Notwithstanding this fact, we lm ported from foreign countries over 13, 000.000 bushels in 1912. In view of the latter fact and the magnitude of the industry, and also in view of the number of problems con nected with the industry, it would seem that every aid possible should be given to it Few of our agricultural crops involve more complex problems and call for greater exercise of care and judgment, if the crop is to be grown profitably and kept from from fungous and insect pests. It is desired to call special attention to the fact that several serious potato pests are just entering the state for the first time. They should be attacked relentlessly. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Soil Conditions Needed. The potato requires a rich, mellow, loam soil for its best development. Splendid crops are frequently grown on sandy and heavy clay soils. The sandy loams produce smooth, even potatoes with bright skin and shallow eyes and usually mature the crop at an earlier date than the heavier loams. The heavy loams tend to produce large vines of late maturity and tubers of rather rough, irregular form, with deep eyes and poor quality. A good humus content is necessary for the best pro duction. The vegetation in the soil should be in an advanced stage of de-. Soil that contains a large amount of vegetation just entering the process of decay is not suitable for potato grow ing and should be devoted to some other crop for one or two years before planting to potatoes. The subsoil may be heavier than the surface soil, and sandy or medium loams underlaid with clay or even gravel as another extreme, caa be made to produce excellent crops. Drainage la acquired. The soil devoted to potato crops should be well drained. The surface should have slope enough to admit of good surface drainage so that the water will never stand in pools or fail to run off in case of excessive rainfall. The subsoil should be of such a character that gives good drainage, or tile drains should be used and well distributed so that any excessive moisture will be carried away. Potatoes can not be grown satisfac torily in soil that contains an excess of moisture. Land that is especially subject to late spring or early fall frosts is not well adapted to potato culture. vines are frost tender and must make a gid growth in the spring before the hot summer weather comes on. They endure cool nights well, but for the best development should nave a great deal of sunshine. They are especially subject to disease during cloudy, moist weather. Preparing the Land. The land should be cultivated until it is mellow and of a rather open or porous character. This condition can best bo obtained by rotating the potato crop with other field crops. Land can be used for potatoes for two years suc cessfully, but it is ordinarily the best plan to devote the land to some other crop the third year. For the third year of this rotation soma crop should be chosen that Will turn into the soil a large amount of vegetation. The old potato growing sections of the United States have found it neatly to their advantage to use four or five year rotation, growing clover, alfalfa, field peas, or some simi lar crop on the land for one or two years, and turning under a large amount of vegetation, and then devoting the land to some cultivated crop for one year and then to potatoes for one or two years. This process is one of the most sue- cessful In eliminating diseases, and re duces to a minimum the effect and ex pense of maintaining the soil fertility. The soil should be mellow and in good friable condition to a depth of seven or eight inches just previous to planting, but if fall plowing has been done, it will seldom be necessary to do more than a surface tillage. Planting Suggestions. For an early crop the planting should be done as soon as the land can be worked and the potatoes grown without danger of frost. A very common prac tice is to plant early so that the plants will reach the surface of the soil as danger of frost is past. very light frosts will sometimes ao no harm to the potatoes and even heav- ier ones will only nip back the foilage without killing the entire plant. How ever, frost usually retards the growth and development of the plant, and early maturity is seldom gained by extremely early planting. For the late crop in the sections having long growing periods, the planting can be done as late as June. It is usually advisable to plant early enough so the plants will have ample time to mature and die before frost. If an abundant moisture supply is present, the vines may continue to grow until frost without regard to the date of planting. In such sections, mid' season and early planting is to be pre ferred. The first killing frosts will usually be followed by enough warm weather to allow the potatoes to ripen before there is any necessity Mr dig' ing. Depth of Planting. In light, sandy soils it is advisable to plant the potatoes more shallow than in heavy soils. Soils that warm slowly in the spring also usually produce Pet ter crops, if the planting is shallow. This varies also with varieties and sys terns of tillage and field work. In irrigated sections, it is more common to plant shallow than in the non-irrigated sections. Local practice should De taken as the best indication of what should be done in each section. For large areas, mechanical planters are usually to be preferred' to hand planting. The stand of plants obtained is more uniform because of more regu lar placing of the seed. The work is easier and cheaper done by machinery and the entire field can be planted in much shorter time. There are two types of mechanical planters in general use, called the picker planters and non picker planters. The picker planter is complete machine within itself and picks, out of a hopper each individual piece and drops one piece at a time. The non-picker planter depends upon man for placing the piece of potato in a plate or chute, from which it is drop ped by mechanical means into the fur row below. The non-picker type does not bruise or mangle the seed, but it requires an additional man to do the work and is liable to give an uneven stand unless the man at the hopper is very quick and accurate in his work, The Joke is On The Editor, Surely "A Joke on Pullman" About a Piece of "Ambergris" Turns Out No Joke, for "Ambergris" Was not Ambergris After AIL WEEK or so ago the Home and Farm Magazine printed an item about an examination having been made by experts at Pullman, headquar ters of the Washington Agricultural Col lege, of an alleged piece of ambergris. The officials declared tnai toe uau was not ambergris. The owner, however, sent a specimen to Germany and he was informed it was ambergris. This looked like a good joke on tne officials and an item was printed, head ed: "A JOKE ON PULLMAN." Since the publication of the item in Question, the Department of Chemistry experts at Pullman have been upheld by perhaps the leading amDergris ex porters in the United States, and they have so advised the editor. It seems as if the joke were rather on the editor, than on Pullman. Per haps the joke also is on the owner of the "ambergris." Anyway, here is the little item, that caused the trouble: A JOKE ON PULLMAN. $ ' Five months ago Leonard Six $ on, a young rancher living near s $ East Sound, Orcas Island, found 4? a queer appearing ' mass in the $ water near this- place, lie s thought it might be ambergris, $ so sent a sample to the Wash $ ington State College at Pullman S for analysis. It was returned $ with the report that 'the pro- S feasors there did not know what $ it was. Some weeks later a mem- $ ber of the Arctio Club, Seattle, S $ who knew of the find, took a 3 sample to Germany, and now a $ letter has come to Mr. Dixon J stating that the substance is $ & ambergis and asking for inform- t & ation as to the quantity of the $ find. ' In the meantime Dixon had $ e abandoned the idea that it was S $ ambergris and used a part of the s $ substance as skid grease and S found it excellent for this pur- s purse. The ambergris is said to $ be valued at from $16 to $20 an ounce, making it highly expen- S sive as skid grease. s The ambergris was found off $ what is known as Agate Beach, s t favorite place for summer e S visitors on Orcas Island, and is $ supposed to have been washed $ S in from the Gulf of Georgia. "It thus appears that our judgment in the case was correct and I trust that you' will give this communication as much publicity as was afforded "The Joke on Pullman." ELTON FULMER, Head of Department of Chemistry. And if we have not eaten "crow" enough, we shall say right here that the "next time" but there won't be any next time we shall not try and pit our editorial wit against Pullman wisdow. Billion Needed To Improve Roads Seeding Stoop Grass To Pasture HE custom of seeding freshly clear ed stump land to pasture has not been very widely practiced in many parts of the country. However, the plan is gaining foothold rapidly. The method used is to pulverize tne ground auit thoroughly with the disk if the ground is not too turfy, the breaking plow if it is, and sow about hair ousnei of rye, two pounds of rape seed, three pounds of timothy, three pounds of red top, two pounds of aisiKe and ioui pounds of clover to the acre. The rye is sown first so as to get it thoroughly covered by the disking, then harrow the ground down smoothly and sow the grass seed and the rape and re-harrow. It will make an excellent hog pasture and develop into a permanent stand of grass for future years. The proportions of the seed could be varied according to conditions of the land, as red top and aslike clover are better adapted to wet land than are the timothy and red clover. The rye and rape will furnish pasture until thi other grasses are securely rooted. And here is a letter the editor re ceived from Professor Elton Fulmer, head of the Department of Chemistry at Pullman and State Chemist of the State of Washington: "Sometime ago thero appeared in your publication a brief article beaded, A Joke on Pullman. ' The statement in this article that we had examined a sample of the material and pronounced it not to be ambergris was a correct one. "Upon reading in the above mention ed article that a sample of the above substance bad been taken to Germany and there pronounced to be ambergris, we sent the sample upon which we had passed judgment to the Fries Broth ers of New York City, who in turn sub mitted it to a firm of exporters and importers of musk, ambergris, and simi lar substances, namely: The George Lenders & Company. They are undoubt edly qualified to pass upon such mater ials as ambergris. "We have just received a communi cation from them, from which I quote you as follows: " 'While we cannot say what the ma terial submitted may be we can state positively that it is not ambergris. It has not the appearance of ambergris nor the character of ambergris, nor the characteristics, much less the scent. We will also add that ambergris to our knowledge has not been found on the Pacific Coast' I ... HERE are 2,200,000 miles of publia roads in the United States, of which approximately one-tenth have been improved by grinding, drain ing and hard surfacing. The remaining 2,000,000 miles cannot be made into such improved highways all at once. At a minimum of $5,000 a mile, the total cost would be $10,000,000,000. The com-mon-sence solution of the problem, which has been suggested, is that the burden be divided between the National Gov ernment, the state, county and town ship, along logical lines, the Federal Government to lend its aid and super vision to the great interstate and trans continental routes that connect princi pal cities and state capitals, the state to improve and maintain its main roads linking up the county seats and extend ing to the state line; the country to have charge of tributary market roads, and the township to shape up and drag the earth roads leading from the farm to the nearest gravel, sand-clay or other county market road. The roads that are most traveled should be improved first and in the most substantial way. In many states 80 to 90 per cent of the total travel is carried by 15 to 20 per cent of the road mileage, so the largest number of in habitants are benefited by the perma nent improvement of these main roads. The farmer who lives a mile from a main road and five miles from market gets more benefit from the improve ment of the main road than he would from the improvement of the road past his door. The shackleford post road bill in Con gress can accomplish great good if en acted, after being amended so that the federal appropriations will go to the state highway commissions of the vari ous states, instead of being parceled out in insignificant amounts to local road authorities in congressional districts. Expenditures of Government funds upon the interstate routes will relieve the state and counties of this burden, so that they can devote their funds to the shorter market roads and tributaries. The Michigan State Suffrage Associa tion has indorsed a state system of re tirement salaries for teachers. In rural schools in Missouri, girls are organized into "pick and shovel clubs" under the auspices of the National Con gress, of Mothers. The most popular feminine Christian name is France is Mary. Miss Fern Hobbs, private secretary to Governor West, of Oregon, is being mentioned as a candidate for the governorship. London society women have adopted the new fad set by Mrs. Abdey, of York Place, Marylebone, and are having their backs photographed a la nature, as it were.
