AMEmCAN INSTITUTE. 581 



Hunslet, will well recollect watching with great interest the 

 growth and development of the compound crop. The result was 

 perfect success. I had a very extraordinary yield of peas. When 

 the potatoes were taken up, they were a large yield, with a very 

 few small ones, and every potato was healthy and free from every 

 trace of disease. Those potatoes were laid on a wooden floor in 

 a room in my dyehouse, where they remained all winter until 

 the following spring; they were then examined, and found to be 

 all sound and healthy, and were employed as sets again in the 

 same way, with the same result." 



Mr. Robinson also read another letter upon the same subject, 

 from Wellsboro, Tioga county. Pa., which lays down the follow- 

 ing axioms : 



" 1. The kinds of potatoes in most general cultivation have 

 rotted first and worst. 2. There is no variety but will rot, if cul- 

 tivated in the same locality several years in succession. 3, Po- 

 tatoes started from the seed balls, and not grown on the same land 

 more than two successive seasons, will not rot, if the ground be 

 tolerably dry, and no water allowed to stand in the hills. 4. Po- 

 tatoes grow more mealy, and of a better size, by being started 

 from the seed as far north as 45*=* or 46*^, and worked gradually 

 southward — not being grown more than two or three years at 

 most in any one locality. A small, soggy red variety, started in 

 Northern Canada or Minnesota, and worked to the south gradually, 

 will, by the time it reaches Long Island or New Jersey, have be- 

 come a mealy prolific potato." 



THE STRAWBERRY QUESTION. 

 The Chairman called up the question of strawberry culture, and 

 asked Mr. Pardee, author of a useful strawberry manual, to give 

 his views upon Peabody's seedling. He said that Peabody's had 

 not generally succeeded at the North the past season, but he 

 hoped it would be better the present year. He spoke very highly 

 of Wilson's seedling, which is a staminate, or male plant, and 

 needs no other kind for a fertilizer. It is not a very high flavored 

 berry. Hooker's seedling is very fine flavored, but not so pro- 

 ductive as Wilson's. Hooker's is nearly as excellent as Burr's 



