46 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



The Seed. 



The selection of seed is important in the planting of any 

 crop, but it is especially so in propagating the potato, be- 

 cause we do not plant the true seed but a tuber. A true 

 seed is the result of a union between two incomplete germs 

 of life (usually derived from different flowers in the same 

 plant and often from flowers of two different plants), and 

 partakes of the qualities of the parent plants, and is appar- 

 ently affected by the qualities of preceding generations. A 

 tuber is derived from one complete germ of life, and par- 

 takes, 'with very little tendency to deviation, of the qualities 

 of the life from which it is derived. It is not a new crea- 

 tion by the uniting of two life germs, but is simply the 

 extension of one old life. A true seed contains one germ 

 of life supplied with a limited amount of plant food. Differ- 

 ent seed of the same kind have practically the same amount 

 of plant food. The tuber contains many germs of life 

 (buds), and there is great variation in the amount of plant 

 food stored up to supply the varied members of life germs. 

 Unequal as this amount is in different tubers, the inequality 

 is, unless great care is taken, greatly increased in cutting 

 seed for planting. A true seed is inclosed in covering which 

 keeps out, to a great extent, air and water until it is placed 

 in earth, when warmth and moisture start the germ life so 

 that it bursts the covering. The tuber has no such protect- 

 ive covering. The air and moisture often greatly injure it 

 before the season for planting comes around, unless the 

 grower makes an especial effort to keep it where heat, light 

 and moisture are just right to maintain it at its best. 



At planting time many farmers plant the potatoes they 

 may chance to have, regardless of their condition, and cut 

 them in small pieces, that they may use as few bushels as 

 possible. And thus, with the interior of the tuber exposed 

 to the action of the soil, the cut tuber, still bleeding, is placed 

 in the soil, with no thought of how much has been done to 

 weaken the power of the potato and how much it has been 

 handicapped in its struggle to form a young plant and per- 

 petuate itself. The results of the investigations at experi- 



