68 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



three-quarters of a pound, and cut them into twenty-seven pieces, 

 each having an eye, and planted them in two flower pots, in 

 my green-house ; the latter part of April, when they had grown 

 to about eight inches in height, I turned them out of the pots, 

 and planted them out in my garden, without the sets, in rows ; 

 this fall I dug from them very fine, large potatoes, without any 

 small ones, weighing forty-six and a half pounds. Observing 

 in the garden the last spring, several plants of potatoes that had 

 lived in the ground through the winter, where I had raised po- 

 tatoes the previous year, I was induced to take them up and 

 transplant them. I was surprised to find, on digging them this 

 fall, a very fine produce of remarkably large potatoes. From 

 these experiments, I have satisfied myself, that this is the best 

 mode of raising early potatoes. You get none (or a very few) 

 small ones this way. I have observed fully, that the parent set 

 is only wanted to aff'ord nourishment to the plant in its infancy ; 

 after it has formed roots, it does much better without the pa- 

 rent set. In digging potatoes, I have frequently observed, that 

 where we found the set not decayed, the yield was far inferior. 

 I think it extracted nourishment from the plant, rather than fur- 

 nished any to it. I hope these experiments may prove of some 

 use to the farmers of Essex. 



Your sincere friend, 



E. HERSEY DERBY. 



To Allen W. Dodge. Esq. 



Experiments on Manures. 



We have seen many instances of marked success in compost- 

 ing manures, and some well worthy of imitation. One farmer, 

 whose farm abounds in peat muck, and whose cultivated lands 

 are composed mostly of sandy loam and gravelly loam, has ap- 

 plied compost to his crops with marked success. The last sea- 

 son, most of the crops in our county suffered from drought in 

 mid-summer ; his cultivated crops escaped the effects of it 

 There was nothing peculiar in his method of cultivation, except 



