I 4 cS 



better than barnyard manures in a dry year. Mr. Ware 

 in general endorsed what Mr. Hersey said and enlarged 

 some of the points he had made. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH POTATOES. 



Mr. Hersey gave the results of planting large potatoes 

 cut, and small whole potatoes, at a meeting in Topsfield 

 some few years since, and on Friday he gave the summing 

 up of ten years' experiments. In starting the experiment 

 he used equal weights of large and small potatoes, cutting 

 the large into as many pieces as there were small tubers. 

 The product in ten years showed as follows : — 



Small Potatoes. 

 Large, 255 lbs ; small 80 1-4 ; total 335 1-4. 



Large Potatoes. 

 Large, 226 lbs: small, 90; total 316. 



This shows a superiority of small uncut potatoes over 

 large ones cut, for planting, both in the total production 

 and the number of marketable ones produced. 



After Mr. Hersey concluded, the following letter from Dr. 

 Loring was read by Major David W. Low, Secretary. 



Lisbon, January 18, 1890. 

 My Dear Sir : 1 am happy to comply with your re- 

 quest to present some view of the agriculture of Portugal, 

 to be laid before an institute of the Essex County Agricul- 

 tural Society during the present winter. I cannot promise 

 to give anything new or perhaps interesting, — but I can at 

 least show my regard for that association with which I have 

 been connected so many years, which was an object of 

 great interest to me in my boyhood, and which has taken 

 the lead in all efforts for the improvement of the great in- 

 dustry which it represents. Before I reached Portugal 

 last July, I was obliged to traverse other European coun- 

 tries, and I am inclined to think the most interesting ac- 



