AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 391 



Professor Mapes contended that the large uncut seed did not 

 send up a greater lot of shoots than in the other case. He had 

 planted in its unniutilated state a large potato that had been sent 

 liim from California, the produce was 110 potatoes. The seed 

 had a multitude of eyes. None of its progeny attained its dimen- 

 sions. 



The Chairman said he once cut a potato into sixteen eyes, and 

 planted it in a hot bed in thumb pots. In due time it was planted 

 -out, and the result was two and a half bushels. The weight of 

 that potato was two pounds, and it also was from California. 

 The crop was all cut and planted — the yield was nearly three 

 wagon-boxes full. The following year it became watery and infe- 

 rior, and was discarded. Probably it was the " Western red" that 

 had been carried to California, and there attained its large dimen- 

 sions. 



Dr. Underhill would like to know whether that watery charac- 

 ter was natural to that variety, or did it result from wrong cul- 

 ture, or some deficiency in the soil not existing in the California 

 soil 5 potatoes were generally too light — -the heaviest were the 

 best. 



Professor Mapes alluded to the experiments of Mr. Robinson. 

 His peculiarity of culture was to leave a portion of the crop in 

 the ground all the winter. Ey this process, if advantageous as 

 was asserted, the skin becam.e tougher and the starch better per- 

 fected. He had tried it. The first year it answered. The next, 

 the frost interfered. On soils that are not easily frozen it might 

 answer. 



The regular subject of the day coming up, the Secretary, the Hon. 

 Henry Meigs, stated that Mr. Alanson Nash, one of the earliest 

 members of the Farmers' Club, and who has on all suitable occa- 

 sions manifested his appreciation of it by sustaining it, has, by par- 

 ticular request, undertaken with m.uch industrious research among 

 the scattered fragments of knowledge, to give us a history of 

 the now well marked and acclimated and well taught red cattle 

 of New England, and has produced in his essay on that subject 

 all that may be useful or desirable in relation to this first and 

 nobly created American stock of cattle. He has done for this 



