110 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



general belief. From an experience extending over many 

 years, I have yet to see the day when the results were as 

 good from seed potatoes that were purchased as from those 

 we could raise ourselves. The results cannot be the same 

 with all growers. My ideal way of saving seed potatoes is 

 to select them when they are dug, when you can throw out 

 the poor hills. 



In regard to other vegetables, I believe we get the best 

 seed from California. Our climate is so liable to be wet, I 

 do not think we can get the maturity or the germinant qual- 

 ity that they can in a climate where the seed can grow to 

 perfection and then have six months to ripen. In the east, 

 where we are continually cultivating the same ground, if 

 there is any disease it is very liable to be in the seed. I am 

 certainly a believer that very many of the plant diseases are 

 carried in the seed. I think that is a thing that we shall find 

 very much more general than we are at present ready to 

 admit. 



Mr. Edmund Hersey (of Hingham). I hardly agree 

 with the speaker in regard to the potato. The potato is not 

 a seed, it is a tuber. Whenever you get a seed that grows 

 to full perfection, whether it be north or south, there you 

 will get the best seed, because it is the strongest lived. 

 With any seed that we can ripen on our own land, I believe 

 it is best to do that thing. When you come to a tuber, the 

 northern people evidently are able to grow a potato with a 

 stronger life than we can generally do. They are able to 

 keep it in their climate, and when we take their potatoes in 

 the spring and plant them, they start oif with a stronger 

 life. I have no doubt that we can learn to keep our potatoes 

 a great deal better than we do. We do not put our potatoes 

 in a cool enough place. They lose a portion of their vigor 

 before we plant them. After many experiments which I 

 have tried, I find that potatoes raised in the northern portion 

 of Maine will, as a rule, produce nearly one-third more when 

 planted side by side with home-grown seed, or when every 

 other hill is planted with potatoes kept as well as I can pos- 

 sibly keep them on my place. That has been my experience. 

 Therefore, I take exception to Mr. Kinney's idea of keeping 

 his own potatoes for seed, unless he has some peculiar place 



