South Carolina Temperance Advocate

From the Rural Economist.

HILLING PLANTS:

Mr. Tucker,—I have seen in the columns of the Farmer, and the Cultivator, considerable written on the subject of hilling plants, particularly potatoes and corn, and the conclusion to which the writers have generally arrived, seems to have been that the practice was injudicious, and should be abandoned.—

To this conclusion I give my assent, so far as corn is concerned, as from the nature of the system of roots, and the manner in which the braces are thrown out, it is clear that hilling, by covering the first crop of these upper roots, and starting new ones, exhausts the plant needlessly, as but one set of brace roots are essential to the plants. But unless I am much mistaken, the case is different with the potato. In this plant, as every one who has paid attention to it knows the tuber or valuable part, does not grow on the root proper, but on shoots protruded from the stalk of the plant beneath the surface of the earth. To produce good potatoes, and a large crop, the putting forth of these shoots should be encouraged as much as possible; and no way seems so likely to produce this effect, as providing a supply of light fresh earth around the stem, and renewing it as occasion may require. In my opinion, the experience of our best potato growers is in accordance with these facts; certainly, my own would go most conclusively to show that the more ample the supply of light, rich, penetrable earth, furnished the plants, the better usually would be the crop.

But it also follows, from my view of the matter, that the greatest care should be exercised not to disturb any of the first formed shoots, by subsequent earthing, a point to which too little attention is paid in ploughing and hoeing this plant. I have noticed that in potato plants grown in hard land, or that where not properly hoed and furnished with a supply of loose earth for the shoots, that they were short and diminutive, the tubers crowded and usually inferior. A potato crowded out of the ground, and exposed to the air in growing, is good for nothing; and where hilling is not practised, more or less will be in this predicament, if the crop is any thing like a fair one.

You will, therefore, permit me, for the reasons given above, to question the propriety of not earthing potatoes, though the observance of hilling can well be dispensed with in the culture of corn.

PLANTER.