The potato will grow on almost any soil; but a dry, rich, sandy loam gives the best, if not the largest, yield.  I do not think the potato can be planted too early after the ground is fit to work.  One spring I was able to get in several rows the 15th of March, and I never had a finer yield.  I observe that Mr. Harris strongly indorses this plan.

Nearly every one has his system of planting.  There is no necessity for explaining these methods.  I will briefly give mine, for what it is worth.  I prefer warm, well-drained soils.  Plow deeply in autumn, also in spring; harrow and pulverize the ground as completely as possible; then open the furrows with the same heavy plow, sinking it to the beam, and going twice in the furrow.  This, of course, would make too deep a trench in which to place the sets, but the soil has been deepened and pulverized at least fourteen inches.  A man next goes along with a cart or barrow of well-decayed compost (not very raw manure), which is scattered freely in the deep furrows; then through these a corn-plow is run, to mingle the fertilizer with the soil.  By this course the furrows are partially filled with loose, friable soil and manure, and they average four or five inches in depth.  The sets are planted at once eight inches apart, the eye turned upward, and the cut part down.  The sets are then covered with three or four inches of fine soil, not with sods and stones.  When the plants are two or three inches high, they receive their first hoeing, which merely levels the ground evenly.  The next cultivation is performed by both corn-plow and hoe.  In the final working I do not permit a sharp-slanting slope from the plants downward, so that the rain is kept from reaching the roots.  There is a broad hilling up, so as to have a slope inward toward the plants, as well as away from them.  This method, with the deep, loosened soil beneath the plants, secures against drought, while the decayed fertilizers give a strong and immediate growth.

Of course we have to fight the potato, or Colorado, beetle during the growing season.  This we do with Paris green applied in liquid form, a heaping teaspoonful to a pail of water.

In taking up and storing potatoes a very common error is fallen into.  Sometimes even growing tubers are so exposed to sun and light that they become green.  In this condition they are not only worthless, but poisonous.  If long exposed to light after being dug, the solanine principle, which exists chiefly in the stems and leaves, is developed in the tubers.  The more they are in the light, the less value they possess, until they become worse than worthless.  They should be dug, if possible, on a dry day, picked up promptly and carried to a dry, cool, dark cellar.  If stored on floors of outbuldings, the light should be excluded.  Potatoes that are long exposed to light before the shops of dealers are injured.  Barrels, etc., containing them should be covered; if spread on the barn-floor, or in places which can not be darkened, throw straw or some other litter over them.