384 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



I find by experiment that a wonderful change can be effected 

 in seed potatoes, and other seeds, by a top dressing, which will 

 increase the starch, and decrease the saline matter and albumen, 

 thus causing it to be very fruitful, and plainly indicating the 

 control man has over nature. 



I can change the character of any seed, when it begins to show 

 premonitory symptoms of deterioration, without going off of my 

 farm. This is a chemico-physiological subject of intense interest, 

 and one that I do not intend to leave until most thoroughly inves- 

 tigated. 



New varieties of potatoes are readily procured, as their pro- 

 lificacy, color, shape and quality, have been prodigiously diversi- 

 fied. In selecting, therefore, for cultivation, it would be well to 

 pay more attention to its properties, than its local name. Not- 

 withstanding the varieties now cultivated are very far superior to 

 those from which they originated, they are still susceptible of a 

 wonderful degree of improvement. 



The potatoes before you I raised from seed, which j^lan is 

 seldom adopted, from the fact that it requires successive years of 

 cultivation and care before they attain full size. I selected a 

 seed ball from the earliest and finest potato grown on my farm, in 

 1849, which were separated from the pulp, dried and stored until 

 the ensuing spring, when they were sown in a moderately heated 

 hot-bed. At the expiration of a few days the strongest plant 

 was selected and planted, and the others all destroyed. The 

 produce in the fall was six potatoes the size of a white walnut, 

 and one as large as a Magnum-bonum plum. The top end of 

 this only was planted in the spring of 1850, and yielded ten 

 potatoes, five small, four larger, and one an inch and three-quarters 

 in diameter. All ripened one week earlier than the motlier 

 potatoes, planted in another field, but one-half of each potato 

 was watery and the other half moderately dry. In 1851, the 

 top end of the large potato was again planted, and produced ten 

 nearly equal in size, with one exception, which was retained and 

 the top planted in 1852. They were three-quarters mealy and 

 the balance watery, and ten days earlier than the mother potato. 

 In 1853 they were much larger, all mealy, and two weeks earlier 



