196 AGR1CULTUR12 OF MAINS. 



and it may be expected that we will attain some good results 

 from this Station work. 



Potatoes. The production of potatoes in the State of ]\Iaine 

 has become a specialized industry ; one often giving the highest 

 money returns per acre compared with other crops. The 

 southern seed potato trade is one which we should cater to. 

 This is due to the fact that northern seed always gives a higher 

 yield in the South during the first year of growth than does seed 

 that has been grown in the South for a year or more. This 

 makes for us a special market. If the South were able to grow 

 potato seed stock advantageously for its own regions there 

 would not be this demand for northern grown seed. Members 

 of the Seed Improvement Association who grow potatoes could 

 easily contract with southern growers to produce seed stock of 

 different varieties of potatoes and hence their crop would be 

 sold before it is planted. I will speak of this in my closing 

 remarks. The great trouble with the potato business today is 

 that the same type may be covered by half a dozen different 

 names, or even more. Too often a dozen different varieties of 

 potatoes may be selected from the same bin. To any one who 

 will produce a uniform, true to name, and high yielding potato 

 there is open a large market. In our selection work with pota- 

 toes we have advised the selection of individual hills that pos- 

 sessed potatoes of uniform size, of a type that the market wants, 

 and high yielding. It is certainly possible to obtain strains of 

 potatoes that will give 400 bushels per acre where others would 

 produce only 200. 



No association can live simply through the possession of cer- 

 tain ideals and not through a consideration of a practical and 

 financial outcome of their work. In order to develop we must 

 grow crops, greater crops from the same area, and we must be 

 able to market those crops. This past season our members have 

 grown some very good crops but in many respects we have not 

 obtained a market for them. It is quite possible that we are not 

 yet ready to go into the business of selling seed, but in my 

 mind as soon as we begin to realize that improvement in seeds 

 will come immediately w^hen each farmer realizes an increased 

 return per acre from the production of seed, then we will expect 

 this Association to reach its greatest development. It will take 

 the financial improvement to bring about the production of bet- 

 ter strains of seed. With this aim in view I have thought 



