40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



almost a failure. I know that such is the case, for instance, 

 with the Early Rose potato. The first two or three years 

 that it was planted in Bristol County, we could not get a 

 great yield from it, although we took extra pains. We paid 

 a dollar or two a pound for it, and of course we did every 

 thing we could to get a large yield. I remember the case of 

 a neighbor of mine who kept that seed. It did not do very 

 well at first ; but this last year he got a hundred and sixty 

 bushels of Early Rose potatoes off of three-eighths of an 

 acre, and he is selling them now for seed next spring at a 

 dollar and a half a bushel. Such was my experience in 

 planting the Early Rose : the longer I planted them, the 

 better they were, and the more they yielded. And such is 

 my experience in regard to almost any other potato. 



Now, in regard to corn. A few years ago Capt. Moore 

 originated a variety of corn in Middlesex County which I 

 knew did splendidly there. That corn was taken to Bristol 

 County, and taken to Rhode Island, and was almost a failure ; 

 but still it did splendidly along in this latitude, as everybody 

 knows. 



Now, there is another thing. You may take strawberry- 

 plants from New Jersey, or even from Connecticut, that 

 stand high, and are great producers of hard berries, of good 

 flavor, and all that sort of thing, and they are liable to prove 

 utter failures : there is no certainty about them. That has 

 been my experience. Some dozen years ago I bought some 

 plants in New Jersey and brought them here ; but the thing 

 was a complete failure, although the plants did well there. 

 And it is so here. A plant, in order to do well, should be 

 used pretty near the vicinity where it originated. That is my 

 idea about it, and consequently a farmer must use his own 

 brains. A man in Plymouth County, if he wants a good 

 potato, had better originate it here than rely upon some one 

 in the western part of the State, or some one in New Hamp- 

 shire or ]\Iaine ; and, if a man wants to get pure seed-corn, he 

 had better get it himself than rely upon some one a hundred 

 miles off to do it. When the King Philip corn first came 

 about, it yielded better, in the vicinity of the place where it 

 originated, than any other corn there was about at that time, 

 and we were all very anxious to get it. I know I got a bag 

 and planted it, and it was a failure. Well, one man had so 



