It has a high value as human food, and is demanded in large quantities in some markets. It also has a high value as a stock food, especially for cows. It should be fed after milking, in quantities not sufficient to taint the milk. The price is variable, but about the same as the carrot. PARSNIP.--We recommend Ideal Hollow Crown. For description, see "Johnson & Stokes' Garden and Farm Manual." SALSIFY OR OYSTER PLANT. Salsify, oyster plant or vegetable oyster is a root of easy culture and of high food value. In shape it resembles the carrot and parsnip, and is as perfectly hardy as the latter. The seed should be sown an inch under the surface, in spring, in rows 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 feet apart, and the plants thinned to stand 5 inches apart in the rows. The culture is the same as for parsnips. Fresh manure must be avoided, as it makes the roots ill-shaped. The roots, under good treatment, will exceed an inch in diameter, and may attain a size of 2 inches or more. They may remain in the ground over winter, to be taken up whenever the frost permits or they may be taken up in late autumn and preserved in sand in a cellar. Good salsify is in demand where its merits are known. THE POTATO. The cultivation of the potato is so well understood by every American farmer and gardener that it seems unnecessary to discuss the details of cutting the tubers, planting, cultivating, harvesting, etc. The weak points of potato culture are most commonly the fertilizing and the treatment of diseases. These will be briefly discussed. As to lack of moisture, to be remedied by artificial watering, the reader is referred to our new book, entitled, "Irrigation by Cheap Modern Methods," in which a case is mentioned where water alone made a difference of 129 bushels per acre in the crop. POTATOES.--Best for the South, Bliss Triumph, Pride of the South, Crown Jewel, Early Thoroughbred. General crop in the North--Houlton Early Rose, Table King, Late Puritan, Rural New-Yorker No. 2. For descriptions of these and other varieties, see "Johnson & Stokes' Garden and Farm Manual." =Fertilizing.=--A ton of potatoes (33-1/3 bushels) contains 4·2 pounds of nitrogen (equal to 5·1 pounds of ammonia), 1·5 pounds of phosphoric acid and 10 pounds of potash. This shows that nitrogen and potash are the elements mainly abstracted from the soil by a crop of potatoes. An analysis is not an infallible index of what must be applied to any soil, for that soil may be naturally rich in some one fertilizing element and deficient in the others. Only experiment will determine what is best. But a knowledge of the analysis of the crop is necessary to intelligent experimentation. Nitrogen and potash will evidently be demanded in most cases, yet the Ohio Station recently reports that "phosphoric acid has been the controlling factor in the increase of the potato yields" in the trials made there. This shows how greatly soils vary in their requirements.