700 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



growth when planted comes from a cluster of lateral buds and from 

 a partly-exliaus'ted food supply in the potato. The late southern 

 grown crop is the coming seed crop for all parts of the country." 



I began using this seed for northern planting about ten years 

 ago, and find it fully equal to the best northern seed. It is prefer- 

 able for early jilanting when small in size, as no cutting is reciuired 

 and a single stalk, as a rule, is sent above ground by the tuber. 

 This insures vigor, limits the number of setts in the hill, and gives 

 marketable size to the crop at the earliest possible date. When the 

 second-crop tubers are small, as is the case when the planting is 

 "sery late and frost arrests growth, a less number of bushels is re- 

 quired for planting an acre. New Jersey now grows an extensive 

 second-crop, and my own planting of five acres this year with such 

 second-crop Early Fortune seed was so satisfactory that there is in- 

 clination to emphasize the desirability of more extended use of the 

 second-crop for northern i)lanting. It is not urged, however, for 

 the simple reason that there has been disappointment from receiv- 

 ing stock not true to name. This seed is wanted for an early market 

 crop, and our growers have paid the usual high price, and given this 

 seed the choicest early ground, only to find that the variety was a 

 late one and unsuited to our conditions. Personally it has been 

 found best to buy of an acquaintance among producers of this seed, 

 and it is entirely hazardous to depend upon the representations of 

 middlemen unknown to the buyer. At the Ohio Station the southern 

 seed was not found superior to choice cold-storage seed of the north, 

 but it is superior to the seed ordinarily used because it does not 

 sprout and waste before spring, as is the case with northern potatoes 

 in the southern portion of our potato belt. 



Commendation of this southern seed may appear inconsistent 

 with what has been said under another head, but it is not so. The 

 small size is not objectionable for the reason that it is due not to lack 

 of vitality but to arrest of growth by close of the season for growth, 

 and for the reason that the small tuber, or the cut piece, does not put 

 forth several sprouts, as is so commonly the habit of northern 

 "seconds." So far as my observation goes, a single sprout from a seed 

 piece is the rule, though two sprouts maj' not be unusual with some 

 varieties. In respect to latitude, the second crop is grown so late in 

 the season that the vines have as much vigor as northern potatoes 

 growing in mid-summer. It is produced in cool weather. There is 

 temptation to the southern producer to plant too early for sake of 

 increased yield, and some years the tubers become very large and are 

 matured. Such potatoes are less dtesirable for planting. 



Immature Seed. — This second-crop potato, is, of course, immature 

 when growth is stopped by frost. It is an old teaching that the use 

 of immature seed is inadvisable. That able authority, Mr. E. S. Car- 

 man, has said: "All analogies point to the conclusions that immature 



