FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 189 



Mr. Cowdrey: I have gone through when they are seven inches high. 

 I have gone through with a little fine drag when they are six inches high, 

 and with a weeder when they are even higher. It will do no harm, and 

 will take all the fine weeds that are starting. If weeds should spring up 

 afterwards, pull them out. I don't allow weeds to grow on my potato 

 bed. I won't have anything there to take the moisture. 



Q: Do you use large potatoes for seed? 



Mr. Cowdrey: Sometimes I do and sometimes not. I forgot to tell 

 you how I have practiced in that regard. A few years ago I had 200 

 bushels to choose seed from; I took out two bushels of the very choicest 

 seed, those potatoes that suited me as to type and size. I planted those 

 at one side, to choose seed from the next year, and then I planted the 

 whole crop, just as they came; but before planting them, I took out these 

 two bushels, as I have described, for seed the next year. I think if that 

 were followed up, potatoes would not run out. 



Q: What trouble have you had with the scab, and what is your cure? 



Mr. Cowdrey: The method is corrosive sublimate, but I have never 

 had to use it. 



DISCUSSION. 

 LED BY MR. L. J. POST, LOWELL. 



As far as criticising anything that my friend has said, I should be very 

 diflSdent about doing it; there is no question but that he is a very suc- 

 cessful potato grower. But a person who makes a success of potatoes 

 may do so in a different way, I differ from him in a good many respects. 



In the first place, in regard to the seed. I do much as he said he did, 

 only I would make a difference in regard to the variety. With an Early 

 Ohio, I would use twice as much seed as with the Empire State, World's 

 Fair, or anything of that kind. I prefer to cut two or three eyes to the 

 piece, I get better sized potatoes. For several years I cut one eye, and 

 it works very well if the pieces are good; if not, you get a stronger start 

 with a larger piece. For a good many years I put potatoes in drills; I 

 plant in hills, rows both ways. My land is hilly, and I know that a good 

 deal of the ground through the country is hilly. If you plant in drills 

 and leave the ground a little depressed, as will occur in filling with a 

 horse, and a violent storm comes, it will clean out the whole row perhaps, 

 from the top of the hill to the bottom. I plant three and one-half feet 

 apart, as I did a number of years ago; it stands the drill better, and I 

 can cultivate with less labor, and there is little difference in the yield per 

 acre, on any ordinary soil. If your land is in the highest state of cultiva- 

 tion, you will get more potatoes with the closer planting. 



A BIG YIELD. 



A few years ago, I paid a dollar for a pound of a certain variety of 

 potatoes. There was a premium offered to the man who would raise the 

 largest amount of potatoes from a pound. I fixed u.p a place in my gar- 

 den, and cut that pound so I made eighty hills. I made four hills out of 

 one eye — if you will examine the eye, you will notice that there is more 



