290 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to show whether any such recuperative effects would follow 

 from this neglect. 



In accordance with these views, I would recommend to try 

 the effect of planting the tubers without manure — using several 

 good varieties — in wild pasture land, or in a recent clearing, in 

 dry soil among the bushes, and leaving them, after they are 

 planted, entirely to nature. Plant the same seed year after 

 year, in this manner, taking annually a portion of the product 

 for experiment in tillage land, and see whether the seed thus 

 produced might not yield, on the average, more healthy and 

 vigorous crops. The product of the tubers when planted in 

 wild land, under these conditions of entire neglect, should be 

 used exclusively for seed. The yield would probably be "too 

 scanty to be profitable for any other purpose. If such an expedi- 

 ent should be followed by the improved health of the plant, 

 it would not be an impracticable project to resort exclusively 

 to this method of procuring seed. This leads us to consider 

 other 



V. Experiments in relation to different methods of procuring 

 seed. Beside the one suggested in the last paragraph, various 

 methods have been recommended, by which the properties of 

 seed potatoes might be improved, or an improved crop obtained 

 by adopting certain principles of selection. It has been 

 frequently advised to use for seed potatoes raised in a distant 

 part of the country, or in a foreign country, and in a soil and 

 climate differing essentially from our own. In order to carry 

 out this experiment in full, we should try the different effects 

 of seed obtained in the one case from the extreme southern 

 limit of the potato culture, and in the other case from its 

 extreme northern limit. How would two crops of Chenangoes 

 differ under the same conditions of soil and culture, the seed 

 for one crop being raised in Newfoundland, and for the other 

 in Florida? It would be no idle use of one's time or labor to 

 try a course of such experiments, and to observe the compara- 

 tive thrift and soundness of the two crops in similar soil and 

 situation, and under similar circumstances of culture. 



Mr. Pretz recommends raising our crops from carefully pre- 

 pared tubers. He maintains that " as this plant is unable to 

 produce seeds, when in a degenerated state, we must resort to 

 the tubers which have the faculty of propagation (of ripening 

 their balls.) After selecting the best of these, expose them to 



