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Show GROWING POTATOES UNDER STRAW MULCH BENEFICIAL It Will Bring About Good Results On Hilly Land Where the Moisture Often Does Much Damage. By T. M. Cisel. For growing potatoes on hill land -- or where they are often damaged by moisture the straw mulch will be found to bring good results. For straw covering the potatoes should be planted the last of May or the first of June. We have the soil well prepared. Mark off the rows two feet apart and not too deep. Straw potatoes require only about half the row space that cultivated cul-tivated ones need, as the vines are never so large and cultivation is not r required. Cover the seed with two inches of soil and then with about ten inches of straw, or enough to make P" four inches when well beaten down by rain. This will keep the weeds down and hold the moisture throughout the ber of the experts of the department while going up and down in the land made it their business to study the question and see whether there might not be a germ of truth, or, at least, some reason for the general belief that the moon's phases have an effect od animal and vegetable life. They have concluded after patient investigation that the moon myth is one of the comparatively com-paratively few myths that dates back to pure savagery and has absolutely not a scientific leg to stand on. Almost every one, even if he has not reared in the country, has heard of the idea about planting potatoes in the dark of the moon. The field workers work-ers of the department of agriculture . " 1 ,. ' -Jf Potatoes Growing Under Straw Mulch. summer. Potatoes grown in this way are always free from scab, clean and of finer quality. Clover chaff makes a good covering, but should , not be put on so heavily as it forms a more compact covering, and with too much a rain will cause the potatoes to rot. Hr There is nothing in the current su- perstition about planting potatoes in W the dark of the moon and similar r pieces of farm lore which have been accepted as gospel truth from time immemorial. This is the dictum of the department of agriculture, which made a serious study of the moon superstition supersti-tion and laid the Luna wraith at least .- -a. to its own satisfaction. There is usually a basis in fact for any superstition, and the moon super stition was so deep-rooted that a num- have found that at least 75 per cent of the farmers of this enlightened country coun-try put in their crops and do a good many other things about the farm governed gov-erned absolutely by the moon's phases. Almost any farmer will tell you that if you plant potatoes in the dark of the moon they will run to tubers, and if in the light of the moon, they will run to tops. This is said to be true of any root crop, and it is planted accordingly. There is only one difficulty about this theory and that is that it is not so. The agricultural experiment sta tions all over the country Have been defying the superstition for years and raising just as good crops when the moon was one way as when it was the other. |