POTATOES. 143 



Mr. Gold. I stated yesterday that I used the Thomas 

 smoothing harrow this last spring, with excellent results. It 

 destroyed all the weeds, and pulverized the surface. It was 

 done just as the potatoes were coming out of the ground. It 

 scarcely disturbed one of them, and answered a most excellent 

 purpose. 



Mr. Currier, of Bridgeport. Is not the time of hilling of 

 more importance than whether flat-hilled or not ? My expe- 

 rience has been, that if you hill potatoes after the tubers be- 

 gin to set, it destroys more or less of them, and invariably 

 makes an inferior crop. I never allow myself to hill my po- 

 tatoes or disturb the ground after the tubers begin to set. If 

 I do, I never get a good crop. 



Mr. Hubbard, of Middletown. I have practised harrowing 

 potatoes for a great many years. I think it is the cheapest 

 way of cultivating them. I never give them but one hoeing 

 afterwards. I have sometimes harrowed them two or three 

 times, the last time after the potatoes appeared so that you 

 could discern the rows across the field. Although it seems, 

 as the gentleman says, like rather harsh treatment, I have 

 never found that the plants suffered at all. I have used the 

 common harrow, just the same as I would in any other field, 

 and I think the practice is one that accomplishes a great deal 

 of labor with trifling expense. 



Mr. Wakeman. We all admit that it is best to change the 

 seed. Does it make any difference whether we get the seed 

 north or south, in regard to the earliness or lateness of the 

 crop ? 



Mr. Lyman. I can introduce a little illustration on that 

 point. As I stated yesterday, a cousin of mine, in Columbia, 

 planted some potatoes that came from Mr. Breese in Vermont, 

 with others saved by himself for seed, and in digging them he 

 found that the potatoes which grew from the Vermont seed — 

 they were the Peerless and Breese's King of the Earlies — 

 were a week or ten days earlier than those which came from 

 his own seed. 



Mr. Gould. The gentleman behind me has suggested a 

 questifti of very considerable importance, as it seems tome. My 



