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Show CiiPi POTATO GROWER OF AMERICA ' Hi name Is Merle Hyer. Ilia age ! J, i; years, all of which years he bus ! jpent in his native state, Utah. Dur- i i3g tho winter he attends the high ' ',b00i 0f Lewiston, Cache county, ! I'tah, in h'S 1'omo town, and every ' .ummer he rents at least one acre of j jjij father's farming land and raises j potatoes for fun and profit. At a contest held last autumn be- i ,epn the nineteen thousand mem- l i.ers of the Boys' and Girls' Industrial t fute of Utah, Merle Hyer was de- f dared the state champion, for having raised 764 bushels of marketable po- j tatoes per acre. j lj. it was announced that there i would be a national convention of all (, aders and champions from the var- f ious states where the club movement if has been inaugurated. This interesi- ? tag assemblage of young people be- t ten the ages of 12 and 18 years i was scheduled to convene at Wasn- i legton, District of Columbia, where 3 a.l recipients of local state honors might compete for national distine- ton and be the guests of the agri- ? culture department for one week, ? commencing December 11th. P Young Hyer of Cache county, Utah, was one of two chosen from that state to attend this convention. Being a 8 poor Bchoolboy and his parents un- 0 able to supply him with the necessary hinds to make the trip, it looked for 1 time as though this enterprising pung farmer lad would be deprived 5 of the distinction of filling a place at j; that unique gathering. But a lialf-J lialf-J dozen prominent men of his state, m hearing of his predicament, advanced the necessary money, and the result t was that Merle and a box of his $ choice "4H" potatoes took the train m lor Washington. And the next re-? re-? 5 It vas that his yield of 38 2 bushels j? l ir best half acre was declared the ltrgett aud best output of all potato g growers in the convention. Some-i Some-i what less than one hundred club j? workers were present but they were C the champions of the total 200,000 g enrolled members throughout the f United States. Prof. O. H. Benson, of Washington, District of Colombia, 1 and director of all these clubs in jj America for the department of agri- culture, was the man who pronounced m this young agriculturist the champion : In his field potatoes. The "4H" brand is the name Master Mas-ter Hyer has christened his special '. crop of Early Eureka pctaU-s. The ' tame represents the development and . union of Head, Heart, Hand and : Health of the American youth. ; ,he average crop in oui country, and If the coming generation of farmers : can follow his lead in the future it ; . will necessitate but 500,000 aces ir : stead of 4,000,000 acres to raise our : national crop of "spuds." Or, better : t 'till, on the present 4,0 00,000 acres , o devoted, our country should real-; real-; to not 400,000,000 bushels but eight r ; 'imes that amount, or 3,200,000,000 : UBhelB of potatoes. In this day of ; agitation about the high cost of living and the great need of bettermethods i" scientific production, intensive cul-: cul-: t'vatlon, etc., this boy's accomplish- : Bents should supply one of the need-i need-i object lessons. The yield of Merle Hyer was approximately ap-proximately 800 per cent higher than The following statement gives the toy's own account of how he did it: In producing my potatoes this is ! hs plan I followed: I chose a sandy I i .oam that had been in alfalfa for six ; jews. Before breaking up or plow-. ! '"8 the land, I spread a thin coat of ! tornyard manure over it. On the ! "iHh day of May I plowed the land j e)8llt inches deep, and while the land a still moist I harrowed it. ; Tho Eaily Eureka variety of pota-; pota-; tot8 18 the one I chose for my seed. ' 'M'ected nice, smooth uniform pota-: pota-: toes about the size of an egg or a lit-; lit-; tle larger, being careful to see that i they were free from disease. These I 1 Mected by hand from the most pro-' pro-' juctlve hills the year before, as I tod grown a crop of Early Eurokas ! the previous year. This seed I cut j halves, and it may be well to men-I men-I ct them lengthwise. After the land had been prepared ,ai the seed ready, I planted the po-'oes po-'oes on the twelfth day of May us-'08 us-'08 an Aspinwall planter. Nothing ; M dne from this time on untill the ".6lh of May, when I borrowed the ' j lad the second time. This was done ! to kill all we3ds .that might be com- n& np and to keep the moisture well ! 'n 'he ground. . Oa the 28th day of June I cultivat- the potatoes for the first time, us-."K us-."K tor this purpose a disk cultivator During the growing season I kept the land well moistened by sub-irrigation, there being a small water d-tch two rods north of the patch Not much can be said about Irrigation however, as the moisture was dependent depen-dent upon the raising or lowering of the water in the ditch; my aim was to keep the land fairly moist, but not too moist. On July 5th I went over the land and pulled out all weeds that the cultivator cul-tivator had not taken. Again, on the 2 3rd of the month I we..-, over th. patch for the same purpose. This v.i-.s the last time they were weeded, though I kept the soil loose anJ- well worked with the cultivator. At the time of digging, which began be-gan the 25th of September, the r-lants had all dried down, nothing remaining remain-ing except dead vines. My best half acre produced 382 bushels of good-sized good-sized potatoes, some being very large, but on the whole they were moderate-sized, moderate-sized, aud uniform, but exceedingly thick on the ground. B. A. Fowler in October American Magazine. |