244 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



Now, Dr. Morse spoke about the mosaic ; I was interested in 

 that because we have handled it on our place. We had a field 

 of a little better than a half an acre that was turned down be- 

 cause we found a hill of mosaic. 



Here, three or four years ago, my son, in going over a piece 

 of potatoes, found two fine hills of Green Mountain potatoes; 

 in one hill there were 13 and in the other, one more or one less, 

 I don't remember, but they were all fine potatoes. The tops of 

 the plants on one of the hills, however, showed that something 

 was not just right. We kept those two hills separate and 

 planted them the next year. They had appeared to mature 

 early, so we hoped by planting them we might get a strain of 

 Green Mountains that would mature a little earlier. As I said 

 we planted these two hills the next year, and the potatoes from 

 one hill did not show a sign of mosaic, while every hill from 

 the other lot was afifected with the disease. This would show 

 that the trouble was carried in the seed, but. without doubt, 

 most of the diseases remain in the ground, as well as in the 

 seed. 



About net-necrosis : This appears to be something new and 

 we have not discovered any method of controlling it. We 

 planted a few Eureka potatoes in one of the fields, and in look- 

 ing over the crop — I was sorting out about two bushels — I 

 discovered two potatoes that had net-necrosis. In another 

 field where we planted only a few of these potatoes we found 

 many more affected with the disease, thus showing that there 

 was some influence outside of the seed, for the seed was the 

 same in both fields. There may have been something in the 

 soil that helped that to grow ; it might have been in the seed, 

 but I do not know. Only think of the different influences that 

 cut down or increase the profits in potato raising; there are 

 - 400,000 of them. T suppose it is better not to be extravagant, 

 so I will call it 14,769. The things we have to consider are the 

 climatic conditions, the amount of moisture, the various soils ; 

 there are a great many things we cannot control at present. 

 One thing, we can throw out of our seed potatoes every potato 

 that shows any sign of disease; when they do not show it, 

 we can only do the best we can — like the potatoes that carried 

 the mosaic in that hill and we did not see it. 



