Secretary's Biiclgei. 335 



bushels each year, and if the consequent variation in yield is placed 

 at ten per cent, the Missouri crop may be thus modified by more 

 than half a million bushels per annum : 



"Agriculture is woefully prolific of such unsettled problems, 

 seemingly of little moment, yet the aggregate of each and the 

 sum of them all is of momentous importance to civilization, as 

 the unit of labor essential to produce a given amount of food, or of 

 the raw products for the arts, measures all progress." 



The botanical consideration has influence in keeping this 

 among the multitude of puzzles in husbandry ajipareutly easy of 

 solution, yet still perplexed by contradictory views and reported 

 experiences : 



" Many assert that inasmuch as the tuber is not the true seed, 

 which seed is found on the tops in the potato ball, and that inas- 

 much as the eye is but the bud, it matters not whether the plant is 

 propagated from a large potato or a small one, from one eye or 

 from many." 



Thus it becomes apparent from the foregoing that the profes- 

 sor, who easily ranks among tlie first of our practical experimenters, 

 was right in taking up this vexed question in preference to seem- 

 ingly more "profound work," and the data of tests of nine consecu- 

 tive years, as given with sufficient detail in an eight-page bulletin just 

 issued, cannot fail to interest all who raise potatoes. And it is 

 remarkable and looks like a long step toward the sohition of the 

 difficulty, that uniformly the crop during all this time was in pro- 

 portion to the quantity of seed. Against " one eye to the hill," 

 advocated by many good farmers, the professor says : 



Among the very few official trials that have reached my attention, 

 I have seen none that favor this view, in the ordinary way of cut- 

 ting potatoes. Since beginning these trials, I have seen two foreign 

 tests, covering about seven years each, wherein the effect of cutting 

 on the future vigor of the plant was studied, with results against 

 fine cutting. One eye and small potatoes gave less favorable results 

 at the Ohio Experiment Station last year than whole potatoes. I 

 think it entirely safe to affirm that light seeding of potatoes, or thi 

 use of small potatoes for seed, will result unfortunately in ordinarv 

 hands on ordinary soil in ordinary fertility, esj)ecially if deepl\- 

 planted. 



These views rest mainly upon the fact that careful tests shov.- 

 them to be good, and that theoretically judgment approves them. 



"The young plant receives no nourishment, except from the 

 seed used, until the leaf appears above the ground. At the usual 



