28 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



6th. It is not advisable to cut a potato into more than two 

 pieces. 



7th. It is better to set the tubers one by one, and not close 

 together, particularly when all the labor is performed with the 

 plow, and no cultivation is given with the hand hoe. 



8th. It is not advisable to plant mere buds, they often fail. 



These experiments of Mr. Schwarts were quoted by an emi- 

 nent agricultural writer of Germany, with whom, I have no 

 doubt, many of you are familiar — Count Von Thaer — who 

 verified them independently, and arrived at similar conclusions 

 with Mr. Schwarts ; so that we have the testimony of two in- 

 dependent observers, continued through a very considerable 

 number of years. 



The Bath Agricultural Society of England — and those of 

 you who are familiar with the agricultural literature of Great 

 Britain know that the Transactions of the Bath Agricultural 

 Society are among the most valuable papers that are known 

 in Great Britain — I have no doubt Mr. Gold; the secretary of 

 this society, is perfectly familiar with them, and will bear me 

 out in the assertion — the Bath Agricultural Society, in order 

 to make this matter still more sure, had these experiments 

 verified by that eminent phydologist. Dr. Anderson, whose 

 experiments were made with the most careful precautions 

 against error, and he showed, as the result of a great number 

 of experiments protracted through many years, that the crop 

 was proportioned to the weight of the sets, and thus verified 

 this doctrine. 



Colonel Mead, of Greenwich. — I am from a section of 

 Connecticut that, forty or fifty years ago, ruled the city of 

 New York in the article of potatoes. The town of Greenwich 

 used to send to New York from five to seven hundred thousand 

 bushels annually. When I first commenced, my crop was 

 from five to six thousand bushels a year. Mr. Schwarts' con- 

 clusions, as stated by Mr. Gould, so well agree with my own 

 experience, that I can not refrain from expressing my views 

 in regard to them. We found it advisable to take our seed 

 from high, dry ground, and plant in hills two feet apart, one 

 potato in a hill, from the size of a turkey's egg to a good sized 



