ANNUAL CATALOGUE NUMBER. 
Vol. LVII. No. 2509. 
NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 26, 1898. 
*1 PER YEAR. 
THE CUTTING OF SEED POTATOES. 
KEEP OUT T II E 
BLIND EYES. 
How the Types Differ. 
People who sell machines for planting potatoes, well 
understand how farmers differ in their methods of 
cutting seed. The machine for cutting potatoes was 
really the outgrowth of a demand for seed pieces of 
uniform shape and size to work in planters. Most of 
these machines slice or chop the potato into pieces. 
In some sections, many farmers are greatly 
pleased with them, and give them almost un¬ 
qualified praise. Others are disappointed. 
The seed pieces will not “ come up,” and thei-e 
are too many misses in the field. 
The reason for this is quite easy to under¬ 
stand when we realize what a potato is, and 
how its early growth is made. The “ eye ” 
or hud from which the little plant must grow 
must be strong and vigorous to start with, 
and must have with it enough of the flesh of 
the tuber to support it until feeding roots are 
well formed. Now, if all varieties of pota¬ 
toes were alike in shape and vigor, so that the 
eyes or buds were evenly distributed over the 
surface, we might have a single rule for cut¬ 
ting seed, and in most cases, a machine would 
do fairly good work. We all know that tubers 
of different types differ, both in number of 
eyes and in the vigor of these eyes. Take, for 
example, a tuber of the Rural New-Yorker 
No. 2 type. This is a round or chunky potato. 
The “ eyes” are, apparently, well distributed, 
but when we sprout the tuber, we find that 
only a few stronger buds at the “ seed end — 
or end farthest from the vine—will start. The 
others are mostly “ blind ” eyes, which will 
make but a feeble growth, if any. In a long 
and narrow potato like Orphan, on the other 
hand, the buds are, also, well scattered, and 
if we sprout a tuber, we shall find good growths start¬ 
ing out all over it. The life of the tuber does not all 
go into a few strong buds at one end, but almost any 
eye is sure to make a plant. 
It is easy to see from this that there can be no fixed 
rule for cutting seed potatoes. At Fig. 
4(5 is our way for cutting the long, nar¬ 
row type of potato of fair size. We would 
quarter the potato by cutting first down 
through it lengthwise and then cutting 
each long piece in the middle. Some 
growers would cut still finer by halving, 
at least two of these quarters. We do 
not like such small seed pieces, especially 
for early varieties. Fig. 47 shows our plan 
of cutting the R. N.-Y T . No. 2. In this 
case, the tuber is cut through lengthwise, 
and then each half is cut in the same way. 
Thus each seed piece carries, at least one 
strong eye from the seed end. The eyes 
on the lower part of the tuber rarely 
start. With smaller tubers, we would 
cut once lengthwise, and plant half the 
tuber. When a man undertakes to cut up 
a tuber of the R. N.-Y. No. 2 type in a ma¬ 
chine, he will find that 25 or 30 per cent 
of the seed pieces will fail. They are 
large enough, but the “eyes” are feeble, 
and if they start at all, will make poor 
plants. Last year, a good deal of our 
seed was cut by new hands, and we made 
a general rule for cutting lengthwise as 
with the round or chunky type of pota¬ 
toes, two or four pieces as the size of the 
tuber warranted. The trouble with pota¬ 
toes of the Orphan type, when cut in this 
way, is that the seed pieces are so long 
and narrow that they break too easily. They give very 
poor satisfaction when used in a planter, especially the 
crisp and dry varieties like Rural Blush. Let a farmer 
cut one or two different varieties and sprout them care¬ 
fully, and he will be surprised at the variation in the 
strength of the eyes. 
Seed potatoes will be high in price this year, and 
many growers will be tempted to cut closer than they 
did last year when seed was low. Dealers are charg¬ 
ing us for what cost us only $1.25 one year ago. It 
HOW TO CUT A SEED POTATO. Fig. 46. 
will be a mistake to cut too fine on varieties like R. 
N.-Y. No. 2. With favorable soil and season, one good, 
vigorous eye with a fair-sized piece of flesh, may give 
a good account of itself ; but be sure that the eyes have 
some sight in them before putting them in the ground. 
HOW TO CUT A SEED POTATO. Fig. 47. 
DIGESTIVE FERMENTS FOR OLD SEEDS. 
A NEW IDEA WITH MANY POSSIBILITIES. 
Old Seeds Given New Vigor. 
1. What is the principle involved in your use of digestive fer¬ 
ments on old seeds ? 2. What are enzyms ? 3. What enzyms give 
best results ? 4. On what seeds do they act best ? 5. How do you 
make the application ? 6. What is the expense? 7. Is the method 
of practical utility ? 
These are very pointed questions, and the answers 
to most of them must be vague and unsatisfactory. 
The line of work which we have been follow¬ 
ing at the Vermont Experiment Station is 
quite new, and the few things we have learned 
look dwarfish and sorry compared with the 
things we want to know. These answers, 
therefore, are founded on a very imperfect 
knowledge of the whole subject, and we re¬ 
serve the right to change our minds on any 
point hereafter. 
1. The principle involved is this : When a 
seed germinates, the young plantlet which 
comes out must live for a short but critical 
season on the food material stored in the 
seed by the mother plant. This season lasts 
till the plantlet develops roots of its own, 
reaches into the soil and becomes able to 
forage for itself. The foods on which it lives 
during this time are contained in the body of 
the seed in concentrated forms (starches and 
albuminoids). These have to be dissolved, and 
pass through more or less extensive processes 
of digestion before the material can be rebuilt 
into the tissues of the germinating plantlet. 
It is these digestive processes which we think 
we assist when we apply such ferments as 
diastase, pepsin, pancreatin, trypsin, etc. The 
artificial use of such reagents in animal diges¬ 
tion is a well-developed line of medical prac¬ 
tice. They are, also, very extensively used by 
manufacturing chemists in a great variety of 
ways. Our notion has been that seeds, especially old 
seeds, which usually germinate poorly, often lack the 
necessary ferments to digest the food they contain, 
and to make it available for the little plant. 
2. Enzyms are “soluble ferments” or “ inorganic 
ferments ”, and that is about all we know 
about them. Yeast, for instance, is an 
organic ferment, because it produces fer¬ 
mentation through the growth of an or¬ 
ganism—the yeast plant. The “ mother ” 
of vinegar is a bacterial ferment, for it 
produces fermentation by the growth of a 
small organism related to the bacteria. 
But diastase is an inorganic ferment, for 
a very little of it may produce a very active 
fermentation without the presence of any 
known bacterium, fungus or other organ¬ 
ism. These enzyms are often very power¬ 
ful ; some of them are able to transform 
and make soluble many thousand times 
their own weight of starch, albumen or 
other substance. 
3. Thus far, disastase has proved most 
effective for us ; still we have had encour¬ 
aging results with others, especially a 
medical preparation known commercially 
as “ extractum pancreatis ” and another 
called “ enzymol.” Another called “ dias- 
tasic essence of pancreas,” gives almost 
equal promise, while trypsin and pepsin 
have sometimes seemed to be a very posi¬ 
tive benefit to treated seeds. Here are the 
average results from a batch of 1,800 
tomato seeds recently taken out of our 
germinator ; the figures show the percent¬ 
age of germination : check, seeds soaked 
in water, 42 per cent; diastase, 45 ; ex- 
