No. I.] MODERN POTATO CULTURE. 65 



Governor has suggested. There are many people in our 

 State that are practising the following rotation : the iirst 

 season potatoes are grown, with commercial or farm ma- 

 nures. The next season they sow sonic kind of grain, as oats, 

 wheat or barley, with clover. The grain is harvested ; and 

 the third season they cut one crop of clover, and in the fall 

 plow under the after-growth, and the rotation is completed 

 and the field is again ready for potatoes. 



Governor Hoard. That is, plowed under in the fall? 



Professor Woods. Yes. That is partly because we believe 

 it is a better thing, and partly because spring in Aroostook 

 County has no length. It is winter one day and the next it 

 is summer ; we jump from one to the other ; and conse- 

 quently most of the farm work has to be done in the fall. 

 They do not have time to plow in the spring, and they do 

 in the fall ; and they get the land in better condition than if 

 they had waited until the spring for their plowing. When- 

 ever they can do it, — they do not often do it, — it ought 

 to be plowed again in the spring. 



There has been, by practical growers, more or less of this 

 testing of resistant varieties ; but in Aroostook County I 

 think we have grown no varieties that are iron-clad so far 

 as the late blight is concerned. We can keep off the early 

 blight; do not have a great deal, any way. The " Green 

 Mountain" is a resistant variety, very little trouble with 

 early blight ; but the late blight can tackle anything, and 

 he does it ; and, while there is a difference in susceptibility, 

 I doubt if we are going to be able to depend on hardy 

 variety as a preventive against the late blight ; but, as Gov- 

 ernor Hoard has said, there is a difference in their suscepti- 

 bility, and I think, with equally good varieties, of two we 

 ought to choose that one that has proved to be the more 

 resistant. 



Prof. Wm. P. Brooks (of Amherst). I want to express 

 my appreciation of the value of the talk Professor Woods 

 has given us, and my agreement with his position. I rise 

 only to emphasize one or two things from our local point 

 of view. One of these points was alluded to by Governor 

 Hoard, — the value of clover sod for potatoes. I agree most 



