PLANT BREEDING 97 



ence is indicated in the yield. If, on the other 

 hand, there are seventy or eighty per cent, of 

 the hills producing a high yield, the return 

 from the area will be correspondingly in- 

 creased. Tests have demonstrated that a strain 

 of potatoes can be built up and maintained, 

 seventy to eighty per cent, of which will be 

 made up of productive hills, with the result 

 that the yield is correspondingly increased. 



By proper selection it will be possible under 

 good cultivation to double the usual yield of 

 any ordinary strain of potatoes in two or three 

 years, and this without materially increasing 

 the cost of production. There is probably no 

 extensively tilled crop that responds so readily 

 to the hand of the cultivator as the potato. 



In order to bring about such improvement it 

 is necessary to plant the seed in such a way as 

 to get an indication of the character of the 

 product each tuber will produce. Start by cut- 

 ting each tuber into four pieces, cutting from 

 end to end so as to split the terminal bud. 

 Plant the four pieces one after another in sep- 

 arate but adjacent hills. There will then be 

 four hills from one tuber; four hills from an- 

 other, and so on down the row. At harvest 

 time the product of the four hills from any 

 given tuber can be thrown together, and an 



