AMERICAN INSTITUTE, 295 



difficult to grow oats upon our well manured soil, on account of 

 their tendency to lodge I have a field now so fallen that men I 

 have hired to cut thera have given up quite discouraged. They 

 can only be cut by pulling them up with the point of the sythe. 

 We subsequently inquired of Mr. Bergen if he used lime on his 

 land, and found that he did not, and have no doubt if lie did 

 that he would find his oats grow Vv'ith as stiff a stem as a bunch 

 exhibited from Patchogue, L. I., the stalks of which were as 

 large as pipe stems and strong enough to support a remarkably 

 heavy head. 



Dr. Underliill, of Croton Point — I never have had any rot in 

 my potatoes, and I have grown them from seed grown many 

 yeai-s upoji the same ground. Some of the tops of the Mercer 

 potatoes have been killed. The Western Reds of the long 

 variety are never affected. My potato land has all been dressed 

 with swamp muck, in which there is a good deal of sulphate of 

 iron (copperas) and tannic acid. I have put upon less than 100 

 acres of dry, sandy soil, 30,000 loads of alluvial deposit. I 

 think the Mercer and kidney potatoes much more inclined to rot 

 than any other kind- 

 Mr. Bergen said that on Long Island the Mercers rot woi-se 

 than any other kind, and are the sort mostly cultivated. 



The Chairman said, upon his ground, he had observed the 

 same sort of potatoes badly diseased in one part, and healthy in 

 another spot only a few feet distant. His soil contains sulphate 

 of iron where he grew potatoes. 



Mr. Pardee — I have noticed that it is thought that the newest 

 kinds of potatoes are most free from disease. In this State, 

 when ihe rot first appeared, it affected all the old kinds alike. 

 One man had sown seed of a fine, white table potato, derived 

 from Mexican seed, which it was then said never had rotted. 

 It has now been extensively cultivated, and I do not know tliat 

 it has ever been affected. Some of tlie new potatoes produced 

 by Mr. Goodrich, of Utica, are veiy superior in quality, and 

 are certainly much less likely to rot tlian the older varieties. 



Solon Robinson related an anecdote about liis experience with 

 a new variety of potato, said to be proof against the rot. About 



