POTATO REPORT 



BY FRANK WM. KANE 



The increasing interest shown throiighont the state during 

 the past few years in potato culture is sufficient reason for 

 publishing an annual report and keeping up the yearly test. 



After publishing the co-operative potato experiments, Bul- 

 letin No. 63, "Third Potato Report/' the list of varieties in 

 our own test was carefully gone over, and over fifty per cent 

 discarded. The test during the past season contains therefore 

 only those varieties that have proved worthy under our condi- 

 tions of culture. A few of the higher numbers are new intro- 

 ductions, or have been grown at the station but for a single 

 season, and therefore are continued in this season's test. 



The cultural directions for the past season were practically 

 the same as previous seasons. These have been fully ex- 

 plained in the earlier bulletins; also, illustrations of each of 

 the varieties are given therein. There are some of these 

 reports still on hand and may be had for the asking. 



The past season was extremely dry during the fore part, and 

 the tubers started very slowly. Where there was sufficient 

 moisture, however, they did well and produced very heavy 

 crops. In many places the fields planted looked very ragged, 

 due to the comparatively few hills that grew. Even under 

 these conditions, however, the returns in most cases were very 

 fair, for on the whole the tubers averaged a good size, there 

 being but very few small ones. It was a prevailing expres- 

 sion of all potato growers after harvesting their crops that 

 they were surprised in their large yield of fine tubers. 



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