e inferior to the late ones. The Early June is very
early, but its quality is quite indifferent. The Cherry Blow is early,
attains good size, and yields rather well. In quality it is poor. The
Early Kidney, as to quality, is good, but will not yield enough to pay
for cultivation. The Cowhorn, said to be the Mexican yam, is quite
early, of first quality, but yields very poorly. The Michigan White
Sprout is early, rather productive, and good. Jackson White is in
quality quite good, is early, and a favorite in some places. The Monitor
is rather early, yields large crops; but as its quality is below par, it
brings a low price in market. Philbrick's Early White is one of the
whitest-skinned and whitest-fleshed potatoes known. It is about as early
as Early Goodrich, is quite productive, and grows to a large size, with
but few small ones to the hill. Its quality is excellent. It has not yet
been extensively tested. The Early Rose is said to be very early, of
excellent quality, and to yield extremely well. It has, however, not
been very widely tested. Perhaps for earliness and satisfactory product,
the Early Goodrich has no superior. It is of fair quality, and though
some seasons it does not yield as well as others, yet, all things
considered, it is a desirable variety. The old Neshannock, or Mercer, is
among the latest of the early varieties. As to quality, it is the
standard of excellence of the whole potato family. But it yields rather
poorly, and its liability to rot, except on soils especially fitted for
it, has so discouraged growers that its cultivation in many sections is
abandoned. On rather poor, sandy soil, manured in the hill with
wood-ashes, common salt, and plaster only, it will produce in ordinary
seasons two hundred bushels per acre of sound, merchantable tubers, that
will always command the highest market price. Any potato cultivated for
a long series of years will gradually become finer in texture and better
in quality; but its liability to disease will also be greatly increased.
As an instance of this, it will be remembered that when the Merino and
California varieties were first introduced, they were so coarse as to be
thought fit only to feed hogs, and for this purpose, on account of their
great yielding qualities, farmers continued to cultivate them, until
finally they became so changed as in many sections to be preferred for
the table. Their cultivation, however, is now nearly abandoned.

Of the later vari