THE GROWTH OF POTATOES

New Zealand Mail, 22 January 1902, Page 57

THE GROWTH OF POTATOES

The lack of sufficiency of farmyard manure is the great want felt on most mixed iarms, and in order to ascertain if this want could be supplemented by artificial manures in the growth of potatoes, the Lancashire County Council have caused experiments to be instituted in various parts of the comity. In pursuance of this plan, Mr Thomas Storey, of Edgeliill Farm, North Lonsdale, Lancashire, has taken up the contents of ten experimental plots of “Up-to-dates,” each one-twentieth of an acre. The soil is of a light calcareous cue on the limestone formation. The trials have been between twenty tons of dung against ten tons of dung and' varying quantities of superphosphate, sulphate of potash, and sulphate of ammonia, and the results of the two best plots are as follow: Twenty tons of farmyard dung per acre produced the equivalent of llljcwt. of marketable tubers, 24Jcwt. small, and 5-| cwt. diseased per acre. Ten tons of dung, with 4cwt. of super., lewt. of potash, and 2c\vt. of ammonia per acre, produced the equivalent of 274£cwt. of marketable tubers, 311 cwt. small, and 2cwt. diseased per acre. Another plot to which Bcwt. of super., in place of 4cwt., was given, produced a smaller return; and another, which was given 25 tons of dung per acre, produced only 285 cwt. marketable tubers, 37cwt. small, and 4cwt. diseased per acre, which would lead to the infereuet that, although future crops might benefit from the extra 5 tons of dung, the potatoes did not.