G. i». howe’s potato manual. 
29 
the potato, slip off the sprouts and plant them. You can then cut 
the tuber into single eyes and plant as usual. The crop from the 
sprouts will ripen two weeks before the others. I made $40 this 
year by trying this with a handful of potatoes. Every reader is wel- 
come to it and may make as much or more than I did, if he secures a 
few pounds of the newer and costly but valuable kinds. 
D. H'. Compton, in his prize essay says “ Much is gained by 
changing seed. * * * Even when the same variety is desired, 
experience shows the great benefit of planting seed grown on a dif- 
ferent soil. The best and most extensive growers procure new seed 
every two or three years, and many insist on changing seed every 
year; and undoubtedly the crop is often doubled by the practice. 
READ THIS 
And take the good advice. M. Crawford on Seed Catalogues. 
“ The following is taken from ‘ Gleanings in Bee Culture.’ Mr. 
Crawford says to Mr. Root, — “ When I get a bright new catalogue 
that evidently cost the seed grower quite a sum of money a piece, I 
have always had a sort of feeling that he deserved at least a little 
encouragement from every one who received it ; therefore I mail a 
little order for onion seeds to our friend Maule ; buy some new wax 
beans of Burfee ; a few packets of Henderson and so on ; and if I 
get the seeds, of course 1 must give them a little plat of ground. 
These great red onions that you are admiring here were the pro- 
duct of Maule’s strain of Wonderful Red ; these great white ones are 
Burfee’s Silver King, and so on. I have no particular use for them, 
growing strawberries mainly, as I do ; but it gives me a feeling of 
pleasure, just as it does you, in this : that these new things are real- 
ly what they are represented to be, and that they are certainly supe- 
rior to the common King we have been selling.” 
Now, the above mav not have been exactly friend C.’s words, but 
they are the sum and substance of them, and I do think that every 
one of you who receives one of these beautifully illustrated catalogues, 
with their colored plates, ought to send the proprietor at least a small 
order for seeds, by way of encouragement. If you pay 10 or 25 cts. 
for the catalogue, you need not make an order unless you choose ; 
but where it is sent you free, I think you can pick out at least a few 
simple things that will be worth all they cost you, and at the same 
time prove an encouragement to the one who expends so much money 
iu getting up the catalogue. 
