Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 423 



do so, each effort being more feeble than the former; even the 

 unripe tubers will make the effort sympathetically, and so produce 

 after growths, and oftentimes send up new sprouts and continue 

 doing so, until the whole is prostrated by frost. 



Now, the potato, being originally an exotic, nature has not pro- 

 vided for that contingency (frost), and so, when the plant is sud- 

 denly cut down, in this manner and condition, all of those sub- 

 stances contained in the parts stricken down, and which, after a 

 healthy growth and maturity, would be conservated in the tubers, 

 are irretrievably lost. 



When dug, the best are taken to be eaten, and the refuse left to 

 plant; and in this way we have been going on, year after year, 

 adding deterioration to the deteriorated, heedless of simple facts, 

 attributing our failures to fungus, auimalculae, &c., the presence and 

 existence of which are simply resultant of a negative tendency, and 

 legitimately consequent upon our own mismanagement. 



You have had repeated testimony of the fact that nails, driven into 

 the branches or trunks of barren fruit trees, induce fruition. One 

 man declares he has enlarged his melons by sprinkling the vines 

 with a solution of copperas, and it is pretty generally known, that 

 grain soaked in that solution just before sowing is rendered less 

 liable to smut; and why? It is not on account of its destructive 

 qualities exerted on animalcule — as some people think, but that it 

 induces a healthy flow of electricity which invigorates the plant or 

 tree, enables it to obtain its needs from the elements, and pro- 

 motes a positive tendency under the intelligent domination of the 

 vital principle. 



What then shall we do for the potato? I say, carefully read 

 and digest my former communication in connection with this, which 

 is supplementary and put in the iron. This may de done in various 

 ways, the best way must be determined by time and experience. 

 A simple way is to thrust a fourpenny nail into each set and let it 

 remain, or to cause a powder of copperas and lime to adhere to the 

 newly cut set. Still another: put some oxide of iron into the 

 ground, where and when you deposit the set. 



And now I would ask, does the Club attach sufficient importance 

 to what I have advanced, to induce them to subject it to a full and 

 fair test? 



A LAEQE PEAR TREE. 



Mr. S. Burnett, Vincennes, Ind. — Twelve miles above here and 

 three miles from the Wabash river, stands the stump of the Occle- 



