DAIRY 'AND SEED IMPROVEME^^'T MEETINGS. 363 



plant; that certain of those diseases we could prevent and pos- 

 sibly some we could cure. Those people down south are troubled 

 with these diseases perhaps more than we are. The soil is 

 moist, the weather is warm and they must grow the crop quickly 

 in the season when the best opportunity for the development 

 of disease is found. We have sent down there potatoes badly 

 infected with blackleg, sometimes 25 or 30 per cent of the crop ; 

 we have sent down potatoes affected with other diseases, and 

 perhaps most important of all, we have sent potatoes that are 

 not true to type. Last winter at Caribou I saw potatoes being 

 sorted out of one bin. The man had a barrel at one side in 

 which he was putting Cobblers ; in another barrel he was putting 

 Green Mountains, in another barrel Norcross, and in another 

 barrel some other variety, all from the same bin. Now the 

 question is, what per cent of those Cobblers which came out of 

 the same bin with the Green Mountains would prove to be early 

 potatoes when planted in the south? They grow potatoes in 

 New Jersey and Virginia for an early market crop. Every day 

 they leave those potatoes in the ground after the time when 

 they should be ready to dig, means so much loss per bushel, 

 because the digging begins in Florida and follows up the coast 

 line, and if it gets by them the price goes down. So they must 

 get their potatoes on the market at the earliest possible moment, 

 and the late varieties will not mature as soon as the early 

 varieties. If there are late varieties mixed with the earlv ones, 

 they are likely to start the whole lot down hill. 



So the people in the south are interested to get potatoes for 

 seed which have these three points, — freedom from disease, 

 purity to type and high yielding qualities, and they will buy 

 them where they can get these qualities. If you and I cannot 

 furnish them, they will go to New York or Michigan, or some 

 other state. At our last annual meeting the Seed Improvement 

 Association voted that we undertake to make some study of 

 the markets and that we undertake to find some plan of mar- 

 keting our seed and standardizing it. These things enter into 

 the certification of seed and we formed a tentative plan for 

 certifying and guaranteeing seed stock grown in Maine. When 

 powdery scab was discovered here last winter. Dr. Orton from 

 the Federal Horticultural Board and other gentlemen from 

 Washington and from the South, came to Maine and brought 



