Acclimation of Seed. 
An experienced and successful potato 
grower of Franklin Co., Mass., recently 
made these statements to the writer. His 
custom has been to change his seed potatoes 
every third or fourth year. After many 
trials he is convinced that seed grown from 
15 to 30 miles north of his farm yields bet¬ 
ter than that from other localities. He 
formerly bought seed from Maine and Can¬ 
ada, but the yield the first year of planting 
was no greater than from home-grown 
stock. The second and third years the 
yield was better than from his own seed, 
the potatoes seeming to get acclimated, but 
in no instance has it done as well as seed 
procured a few miles north of his farm. 
Possibly the nature of the soil on which 
the seed was grown may have influenced 
the result more than location, but our in¬ 
formant was very positive that the causes 
were climatic ones. He had also noted 
much the same result in wheat, New York 
State and western-grown seed yielding the 
best the second year, but never equaling the 
first year’s product from southern Vermont 
seed. 
It has long been claimed that the West¬ 
ern dent corn could not be grown in New 
England. The repeated failures to mature 
it were perhaps due to the use of the large¬ 
eared varieties, and to improper selection of 
seed. A few years ago, a small-eared, small- 
cobbed, 16-rowed sort (a common type with 
many names) was planted in Connecticut, 
Massachusetts, and even in southern Ver¬ 
mont, where it matured. In the Spring 
of 1884 we selected seed carefully from a 
large lot of Illinois corn of this type, and 
planted it in eastern Massachusetts. The 
crop showed improvement over the West¬ 
ern seed. This year another more careful 
selection was made and planted, and has 
resulted in a greatly increased yield, early 
maturity—one field in 80 days, one in 90 
days, one in 100 days from planting—small, 
compact ears, smaller stalks only six to 
eight feet high. The yield promises to be 
about 72 bushels per acre, and in neither 
case under the best conditions for large 
crops; last year it was about 50 bushels. 
We now have no doubts about our success 
in having produced by selection a strain of 
dent corn well adapted to the New Eng¬ 
land climate .—Our Country Home. 
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