POTATO CULTURE. 441 



taken liis largest potatoes and cut them into small pieces. In the 

 growing' of stock, we take our fairest and largest for breeding. So 

 it should be with the potato. 



Last spring I had sent me three of the " Early Rose" potatoes, 

 very large and fair, with instructions to cut and plant an eye in a 

 hill. On the three potatoes there were thirty-six eyes. I planted 

 them as directed, on a half rod of ground. The result was a yield 

 of two bushels of excellent quality ; at the rate of over six hun- 

 dred bushels to the acre. The conclusion to which I arrived is 

 this : select your largest and healthiest tubers, and seed one eye, 

 or at most, two eyes in a hill. 



One word in regard to fertilizers. I this year took up six acres 

 of ground, in a field that had been utterly exhausted by twenty -five 

 years of mowing, without the return of a particle of manure of any 

 kind to it. It was so utterly exhausted that I think the last year 

 it was mowed it did not give more than three hundred pounds of 

 bay to the acre. In planting, I used the compost of which Mr. 

 Hamlin has spoken,— ten bushels of ashes, six of plaster, two of 

 salt, and two of lime, composted with half a cord of loam, to the 

 acre. I also used Bradley's superphosphate and the Cumberland 

 superphosphate. 



A fortnight ago, I visited the field, where the harvesters were at 

 work. Of course, the soil being so very poor, I could but expect 

 the lightest yield. Where the compost of lime, salt, plaster and 

 ashes was used, the yield was very light. Side by side were the 

 phosphates. The harvesters saw no difference between the Cum- 

 berland and the Bradley, but the yield was as three to one in favor 

 of the phosphates. 



On a patch in the same field, where barnyard manure was applied, 

 some Califoi'nia potatoes were planted. These rotted very badly. 

 But whei-e the phosphates and the compost were used, not a single 

 rotten potato was found. 



Mr. D. n. Thing, of Mt. Vernon. In planting my potatoes this 

 year I have been governed in a great measure by the results of 

 the experiments published in the last report of the Secretary of 

 this Board, and with the best results. I rejected everything 

 smaller than a turkey's egg, and put one in a hill ; no cutting 

 except a very few of the lai-gest, which I cut in two and put one 

 piece in a hill. Rows three feet apart, hills twenty inches. I 

 planted a bushel of Oronos, through the middle of the piece, about 

 the size of a small pullet's egg, which produced less in quantity 



