POTATOES FOR PLANTING. 161 



POTATOES FOR PLAXTIXG. 

 By A. W. Cheever. 



From New England Farmer, 



On several occasions we have alluded in the columns of the Farmer 

 to the superiority of unripe potatoes for planting. Our attention 

 was first called to the subject on learning that the market gardeners 

 and some of the farmers of the Middle States, particularly Virginia 

 and Tennessee, have been in the habit of sending North for the po- 

 tatoes they plant, because seed of their own raising produces crops 

 far inferior to those grown from Northern seed. The explanation 

 given is that seed raised in the warmer climate of those States can- 

 not be kept over from harvest time till the following planting season 

 in suitable condition to plant. In other words, those States are 

 south of the natural home of the potato, and to grow it successfully 

 special measures must be adopted to counteract the unfavorable in- 

 fluences of a warm climate. Some of the enterprising farmers in 

 these States have hit upon a new plan for raising their own seed. 

 They grow one crop for market early and then re-plant their ground 

 for a second crop, which they keep over winter for the next spring's 

 planting. We are not aware how extensively this method has been 

 tried, nor with how great success, but the hint led us to try some ex- 

 periments in this direction, which, to say the least, have been very 

 interesting. 



Three years ago we planted a few square rods to potatoes on the 

 third day of July. The seed planted was somewhat wilted, but 

 there was vigor enough to give a good stand of vines, though they 

 were less coarse and rank than they probably would have been had 

 the seed been planted upon equalh* rich soil early in April. The seed 

 was rather under market size and was planted whole. The crop was 

 a fine lot of very smooth, handsome potatoes, nearly all too small 

 for the table and too unripe to be eatable. They were kept in a cel- 

 lar under the same influences affecting potatoes of the main crop, 

 but while the earlier lots sprouted, as Early Rose potatoes usually 

 do, before it was time to plant them, these late ones remained quite 

 dormant till late into the spring. They also seemed much less wilted 

 than the ripened crop. Having neither farm nor garden to plant that 

 spring, we gave the late-grown seed to a neighbor to plant, and heard 

 nothing more from them till autumn, when we saw a very handsome 

 lot of first-prize potatoes exhibited at the Franklin Farmers' Club 



