No. 144. j 213 



planting cut potatoes. Some of our folks plant thirty acres 

 npiece; for this market they cut their seed potatoes pretty small; 

 they think they g«-t the largest potatoes that way. But tlieie are 

 some sorts of potatoes that will bear cutting so. If there is in a 

 potato any inclination to rot, it wont do to cut it. When whole 

 potatoes are planted, we do not find it sound generally after the 

 growth, but we find merely a skin if any thing, and we think it 

 best for the growth of the new crop that the seed potato should 

 be used up. 



Prof. Mapes — We find the seed potato occasionally as sound 

 apparently as when planted, after the new growth from it ; but 

 on examination I found that all the starch had been extracted to 

 supply the new growth, and the place of the starch filled with 

 water. An imperfect potato when planted will be entirely de- 

 stroyed, but not a perfect one having its proper quantity of starch. 



Mr. Robinson — I am obliged to leave the Club, but I wish to 

 propose a subject for next meeting before I go, viz. : " The most 

 appropriate period for cutting grass and for harvesting grain * 

 Adopted. 



Dr. Wellington — I well remember some experiments tried by 

 my father on potato raising. He made five rows of considerable 

 length, and tried dilierent manures in each row, and that which 

 was treated with salt, by sprinkling some around the plants soon 

 after they came up were much the largest. 



Mr. Bergen— I have been in the habit of keeping some of my 

 potatoes out of doors, buried in pits, with a covering of earth over 

 them some eighteen inches thick, hilled up. I preferred it to my 

 cellars ; but I have lost some bushels of those in pits by severe 

 freezing sometimes. 



Mr. Waring— Then they must have been frozen and thawed 

 more than once. 



Professor Mapes— Potatoes in their natural position in the soil, 

 with their stalks still attached, pass off surplus moisture tlirough 

 the capillaries of their stalks — sojnething as a wet towel hanging 



