90 THE POTATO 



way so that the land will be in a higher state of 

 fertility at the end than at the beginning of the 

 season. If com enters into the rotation, fall 

 plowing should be again practised, and the follow- 

 ing spring the land should be thoroughly worked. 

 The best possible seed bed should be prepared, so 

 that the soil will be light and thoroughly pulver- 

 ized to a depth of five or even six inches. In a soil 

 thus prepared the planter will run easily. " 



In the senior author's trip to Europe in 1910 he 

 found all of the best growers in Great Britain and 

 Germany using nothing but whole seed. He did 

 not visit a grower abroad who used cut seed. He 

 secured a shipment of a ton of very select seed 

 the from Earl of Rosebery's Dalmeny Farms, and 

 George Sinclair, the farm manager, advised plant- 

 ing them whole, even though they cost $200 a ton 

 laid down at Carbondale, Col. 



In cutting seed, especially where soils are apt to 

 be infected with fungous disease, the "armor" of 

 the potato is broken in cutting and the tender tis- 

 sue is exposed. 



"Farmers' Bulletin No. 92" of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture contains the following: 



"As a recent bulletin of the New York Cornell 

 Experiment Station shows, the average yield of 

 potatoes in the United States is far below what it 

 should be. This bulletin states that 'the average 

 yield of potatoes throughout New York is not 

 more than one half what is should be and what it 

 would be were better methods practised.' This 

 low yield is not due, as a rule, to poverty of the soil, 

 because *all soils of ordinary fertility contain 

 sufficient potential plant food to produce abundant 



