98 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



In the selection of seed, cut or uncut, there is a marked want of 

 uniformity. One, dictated by a mistaken economy, selects small 

 potatoes and grows small ones, in obedience to an irrevocable 

 mandate that "what a man sows, that shall he reap." Occasion- 

 ally, and under favored conditions, small potatoes may produce 

 large ones. But such is not the rule, only the exception. 



Another markets the choicest, and from the refuse gathers up 

 the ripe and unripe, healthy or diseased, and at harvest finds 

 demonstrable proof, that " like begets like." Says Virgil : 



" I've seen the Largest seeds, though viewed with care, 

 Degenerate, unless the industrious hand 

 Did yearly cull the led." 



In the choice and cultivation of varieties the same indiffer- 

 ence is too often manifest. Each variety possesses certain 

 characteristics peculiar to itself; as it may require a full season to 

 mature, or it may ripen early, or it may have slender upright 

 stalks fitted for close planting, or profuse foliage, witk large 

 inclining branches, demanding excessive area — it may be tender 

 or hardy, a good bearer or shy — it may be true to its kind or 

 disposed to return to some former type, yet to each kind with its 

 individual peculiarities, is meted out the same measure of culture. 



The effect of cultivation, at best, is to change the character 

 of the potato from its normal condition, with excess of stalks and 

 leaves and connected with deficiency of tuber, to a diseased or 

 abnormal condition having excess of tuber, and deficiency of leaves, 

 and compelling those tubers — or more properly mere dilations of 

 the stem — to perform the offices of reproduction, for which the 

 flowers and fruit were destined. 



The seed of varieties strictly speaking, is not natural seed. It 

 has another element in it, and unless this element has its peculiar 

 wants supplied, it becomes modified, diseased, or is lost. 



Every farmer should have a knowledge of the characteristics of 

 different varieties, and of the correct names and genuine forms of 

 each, and should endeavor to ascertain which are most perfect in 

 their structure and possess most fully the qualities he may wish to 

 perpetuate. 



To tliis end, and in view of the value and importance of the 

 potato, its uses as well as its abuses, — the annually increasing 

 varieties — the deterioration, from causes known or unknown, 

 controllable or beyond control, of the older and favorite kinds — 

 the true and false conceptions of the cause and nature of the 



