AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 603 



the soil . in proportion of ninety-eiglit or ninety-nine from the former, 

 to one or two from the latter. 



It is precisely so with the kernel of wheat, of corn, barley, any 

 seed. The starch is converted, in the appropriate time, into 

 sugar, and affords a pap for the young plant, till it can procure 

 food for itself. I never can believe that the eye or the segment 

 of a potato is as good for planting as the whole tuber, until all 

 the practical farmers in the world are unanimous to that effect. 

 If every one of them, with no dissenting voice, will testify to as 

 good success with cut tubers as with whole, I will yield the point, 

 because I hold that all deductions of science must bow to the 

 experience of farmers. Indeed the experience of farmers, when 

 their testimony is unanimous, is science, of the very highest 

 order, and there is no contradicting it. » 



It is true that the potato is not a seed. This plant is cultivated 

 from sets, not from seeds. But the tuber is analagous to a seed 

 in one respect j it contains the food for the continuance of itself 

 in a renewed growth. Now although the Creator has caused an 

 abundance of starch in the tuber of the potato, beyond the abso- 

 lute necessity of the new plant, yet I suppose there is a limit even 

 to the Divine munificence, in any specific exhibition of it. I do 

 not suppose that the tuber contains ten times, nor five times, 

 perhaps not three times, as much pap as its nursling needs. I be- 

 lieve that God has made things right. 



Partly, therefore, from a scientific point of view, but more from 

 a thirty years' experience in growing potatoes, and from the tes- 

 timony of others, as the testimony in favor of whole tubers cer- 

 tainly predominates, I would by all means plant whole potatoes 

 instead of cut. I would plant those of medium size in preference 

 to large or small, though I do not suppose that this preference 

 should be very strong, as splendid crops are often grown both 

 from large and from very small seedj and I would plant one and 

 but one in a hill. My reasons lor preferring one to more in a 

 hill are well known to the readers of the Farmers' Magazine^ and 

 I believe they are regarded by sensible persons as sufficient. 



A friend at Norwich, Conn., has tried anthracite coal ash two 

 years, a handful in a hill, and that saved his crop from the rot. 



