No. 4.] MODERN POTATO CULTURE. 73 



hope to get fairly good crops out of them, — enough to make 

 it pay us to sell our medium-sized ones? 



Professor Woods. I should not want to plant too small 

 potatoes ; and yet I can readily understand that with such a 

 season as we have had this year potatoes are bound to be 

 high, and we will be tempted to practise more economy than 

 we otherwise would. Down in my State, — of course you are 

 not that way in Massachusetts, — if we have two grades of 

 seeds, and one sells for fifteen cents a pound and is of pretty 

 poor quality, and the other sells for twenty and is first rate, 

 our farmers will buy the fifteen-cent one. I would not do 

 it. There will be a good many small potatoes planted, and 

 I do not think in one or two years 3^011 will get a very serious 

 result from it ; but it is the same way with potatoes as with 

 carnations, — if you take the weakest you will soon have a 

 weak lot of carnations ; and so in the propagation of pota- 

 toes, if you propagate from very small potatoes you will 

 soon run them out, and, while it might do for this particular 

 year, I should advise you after that to come up into Maine 

 and buy seed for the next year. 



Mr. Babb. Wouldn't you want to change the seed there 

 in a few vears? I bought Maine seed last vear, and it was 



good. 



Professor Woods. We have good conditions under which 

 the potatoes are grown. We can't change our seed much. 

 We haven't got the other fellow further north to buy seed 

 from. 



Ex-Governor Hoard. Come and take it from Wisconsin. 



Professor Woods. The distance is too m-eat. I think 

 one great trouble with our potatoes is that here the season 

 is long enough so the potato will get thoroughly ripe. In 

 Aroostook County it will not, and you have a potato 

 vigorous for growth, so that if you send to Maine you will 

 probably get better seed than here ; but if 30U plant pota- 

 toes here the first of July, so they cannot thoroughly mature, 

 I think you would raise as good seed as we do in Maine. 



Mr. Babb. About how small would you recommend to 

 stop in the selection of seed for the coming year, under the 

 existing circumstances ? 



