To the editor:
In April, 1901, the Maine Board of Agriculture published a Bulletin entitled The Potato. Much of the Bulletin consisted of reports from seventy five potato growers from around the State. In Aroostook County, one of the reporters was Elisha E. Parkhurst of Presque Isle.
The Hon. E.E. Parkhurst arrived in Maysville (north Presque Isle) from Unity, Maine in 1857. Early in his farming line of business, he turned a 10-pound bag of alsike clover seed from a Woodstock dealer into a small fortune. But he introduced New England to an important forage crop imported from England. Mr. Parkhurst was an orchardist and also took up the breeding of thoroughbred cattle, choosing Shorthorns. In the 1880s, he turned his attention to potatoes.
From 1870 to 1896, Mr. Parkhurst served as a Trustee of the North Aroostook Agricultural Society (today the Northern Maine Fair Association). He served in the Maine Legislature, was a Chaplain of the Maine State Grange, and was a Member of the Maine Board of Agriculture from 1871 to 1873. Having learned all of this, I read Mr. Parkhurst’s report first. In due course, I found it the most interesting. His report follows.
“In regard to potato growing in Aroostook County, I will say that since Mr. Terry of Ohio lectured through the county on the three years’ rotation of potatoes, wheat and clover, there has been a marked change in the system of potato growing, among our farmers. Many of our best farmers have adopted Mr. Terry’s system to a large extent, with the exception of substituting other grain crops for wheat. But now, with the several flouring mills scattered through the county, wheat raising has become profitable and it will be but a few years before we shall supply Aroostook County with all the flour used. We find that on our three seed farms, where we grow 100 acres of seed varieties of potatoes each year, our cheapest source of nitrogen is through one ton of second crop clover, the clover roots being plowed in the last of October or the first of November. On this land we use fertilizer containing not higher than one percent nitrogen, 6 to 8 percent available phosphoric acid and 10 percent potash. With all fair yielding varieties of potatoes, our average yield is 100 barrels [165 hundredweight] per acre. [Maine’s average yield in 1900 was 76 hundredweight.] To obtain this result, however, we spray with Bordeaux mixture [copper sulfate and hydrated lime] from 3 to 5 times. Have used Bordeaux mixture six years, with the result that we have increased the value of our crop at least $1,000 per acre, above all expense of material and labor. I think Mr. Terry’s lectures in this county were worth more than the total expense of the Board of Agriculture for two years.”
In 1901, agricultural advice was low-priced. The monthly Board Bulletin cost 25 cents a year.
Steve Sutter
Presque Isle
