THE SELECTION OF SEED POTATOES. 433 



THE SELECTION OF SEED POTATOES. 



WM. SANDROCK^ HOUSTON. 



My experience in selecting potatoes for seed dates back to 

 the year 1878. At that time I read an article in some agri- 

 cultural paper on plant breeding, and I thought I would try the 

 potato. I did so and with better results than I expected to see. 

 Soon after this a neighbor tried the Burbank Seedling, which 

 he thought could not be beat, so gave me a few pounds for trial. 

 I planted them and selected my seed from them in the fall, and 

 had a fine yield the following year. Only a few years after- 

 wards this same man that gave me the Burbanks came to me 

 for seed potatoes. He lost most of his through his cellar freez- 

 ing. The following fall he came to me to ask how I could ac- 

 count for the difference in the yield. He claimed my seed of 

 the same variety as his own yielded twice the amount, though 

 they were planted side by side, I told him it was all in select- 

 ing the seed; also my way of selecting it. That fall and the next 

 spring most of my neighbors wanted to change their potatoes 

 for planting. They had all kinds of excuses for making the 

 change, and they bought their seed potatoes from me, though 

 they could have got them cheaper elsewhere. Often after that 

 when potatoes were, so to say, "a. drug in the market," the 

 neighbors would feed theirs out in the spring and come to me 

 for a new start. I had no trouble to get from five to twenty-five 

 cents per bushel above market price, right at the house, and 

 think I was well paid for the little trouble I took in selecting 

 seed. I will state here that I have gone out of this business 

 since a few years, only raising enough for my own use, none to 

 sell. 



Now as to selecting the seed, next spring select your po- 

 tatoes in your own way, cut them so as to have two or three 

 eyes on a piece, plant only one piece in a place thirty-six inches 

 apart each way. Next fall dig your potatoes with a long handled 

 mining shovel, or a potato fork, putting two rows together. 

 Now when you 'find a fine hill put it to one side, and so on 

 through the field keep your finest hills apart from the other 

 potatoes, each hill by itself, till you are ready to pick them, then 

 examine these hills, do it yourself (don't leave it to the hired 

 man, unless he has more interest in the matter than you have). 

 Should you find any potato in aforesaid hills that you .would not 

 care to plant, throw the whole hill with the crop, and be care- 

 ful to save only hills where every potato is fit for seed. Should 



