Show potato fertilizer most ot of our farmers in the west are not in tho the habit of using any kind ot of fertilizer for their potato field except such ch as Is made mada on the farm yet more and more commercial fertilizers are ara coming to be used it Is therefore advisable to consider a few points on the tha requirements ot of potatoes its as to fertilizers the potato crop runs nil all the way train from nothing to bush lils ids per acre though the latter figure figur a li Is very unusual it to Is assumed that hat t A crop of bushels is about as large 1 one as we can hope to raise per sere A crop of that magnitude will vill remove from the soil about 55 pounds of nitrogen 25 pounds of phosphoric beld and 85 pounds of potash it Is certain that the potato does best in a soil well with all kinds of plant food it if we try to put back only the amount ot at plant tood food the potato Is likely to yield we will be unable to place all of it where the roots of the plants will got it for or the reason that all of the ground may not be fed over by the plants sod and there Is also much fertility locked up in the clods that exist on every clayey SOIL then too the wee weeds ds that get a good start of the crop when they are allowed to do so take lake up much ot of the available plant food and lock it up to la their own leaves leases and stems of course it gets back into the soil when the weeds decay but that Is months after the fertility has been taken out of a condition where hero it way may be reached by the roots of the potato plants it la Is therefore necessary to have much more plant food within reach than can be figured upon to enter into the formation of the crop potatoes need much nitrogen in the first part ot of the tha season when the vines are making rapid growth unless we have a large larga amount of foliage we cannot hope to have good sized tubers tor for the material that Is to form the tubers must be elaborated in the leaves and stems ot of the plants themselves not only must there be much to nitrogen in the soil but it must be in a 0 water soluble form plants do not eat cat they drink and they can drink in the nitrogen only when it Is soluble after the leaves and the stems have made their growth the demand Is for phosphoric add acid and potash the farmer that does not know the analysis of bis big soils but feels that lie be needs to put on some commercial fertilizer should select one odo that carries about 3 por per cent of nitrogen 6 per cent of phosphoric acid and 4 per cent of potash it has been found that the potato does best with en an abundant supply of phosphoric acid even far in excess of the amount removed by the crop |