

EXPERIMENTS WITH POTATOES. 

 Chas. D. Woods and J. M. Bartlett. 



An investigation was planned for the purpose of determining 

 the effect of spraying potato vines with Bordeaux mixture on the 

 starch content of the tubers. As starch accumulates most 

 rapidly when the plant is maturing, it seemed reasonable to 

 assume that if spraying prevented blight and prolonged the life 

 of the plant to its natural period of growth, the tubers would be 

 of better quality with a larger proportion of starch than those 

 from immature plants. Aroostook county being the great potato 

 county of the State, where large starch factories are located, 

 arrangements were made in the fall of 1898, with growers in 

 that section to supply us with potatoes from sprayed and un- 

 sprayed fields. 



The samples were selected by the growers and only merchant- 

 able potatoes were taken for analysis. About the time that we 

 were preparing to begin the analyses, Dr. Wiley, Chief Chemist 

 of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, visited the State to 

 study the starch factories of Aroostook. He kindly offered to 

 have the analyses of the potatoes made in his laboratory, and the 

 samples were accordingly forwarded to Washington. The 

 Department laboratory was being entirely rebuilt at that time 

 and this occasioned so much delay in the analyses that the results 

 were not received until the growing season was well begun and 

 it was, therefore, deemed best to defer the publication until the 

 present time. 



The description of the samples and the results of the analyses 

 as found by the Chemical Division of the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture follow : 



DESCRIPTION OF POTATO SAMPLES. 

 No. 3036, Beauty of Hebron. Grown by C. H. Richardson, Fort: Fair- 

 field ; sample was taken from a field of eight acres which had been 

 in pasture since being cleared until 1896. In 1896 it bore a heavy 

 crop of potatoes without any rust; in 1897, it was again planted to pota- 



