New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT Station. 241 
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RELATIVE Yrevps From Eyes Removep AND Not REMOVED FROM 
THE SEED ‘TUBER. 
Which eye of a potato will vegetate first? And which, if any 
one, is most prolific? Also, how does each individual eye, when 
removed by cutting to the center, compare in vigor, as shown by 
4 
early germination and in prolificacy, with an eye correspondingly 
distant numerically from the stem, but not removed from the 
tuber — all other eyes on the tuber being destroyed ? 
Two rows of thirty-three hills each were used to make a trial 
of this in a small way. Thirty-six tubers of equal weight, and 
each bearing eleven eyes, were selected, and three were planted 
in one row by cutting and planting, first, the eye nearest the stem , 
second, the next nearest eye, etc., and using the second and 
third tubers in the same way after the first had been planted. In 
the second row was planted a whole tuber, except that every eye 
was carefully destroyed, save the one corresponding in position 
on the tuber to the single eye planted opposite to it in the other 
row. | ; 
. That is, beginning at the same end as in planting the first row, 
the eye nearest the stem was saved and planted in the first hill, 
the second in the next hill, and so on, beginning back at the stem, 
“after the eleventh and twenty-second hills had been. planted. 
The weight of seed was three tubers, seven ounces, and of the 
thirty-three tubers, four and three-fourths pounds. Care was 
taken to note, by daily observation, when each hill developed a 
green shoot at the surface. This is called the date of vegetation. 
Every one of the thirty-three eyes germinated in. each case, as 
will be noted in the accompanying table, but those removed from 
the tuber were later by three davs on an average than those 
_ which were planted with the tubers. 
That these belated plants were weakened was shown by the 
difference in development of tops, but more positively in 
the yields of tubers which are given below in Table II. 
It will be observed from the table appended that four of the 
hills from removed eyes failed to produce a crop. These were 
two first eyes, one eighth and one eleventh. From the twenty- 
nine eyes which produced crop, seventy-nine tubers weighing 
fourteen pounds and one and one-quarter ounces were harvested. 
_ Of the thirty-three eyes planted which were not removed from 
_ the tubers, thirty-two produced crop and only one (an eleventh) 
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