difference in number of vines
during the growing season.

The poor results sometimes attending cut seed are almost always
traceable to improper seed improperly cut. Only large, mature, sound
tubers should be used. Cut them in pieces of two or three eyes each,
taking pains to secure around each eye as much flesh as possible, also
under the eye to the centre of the tuber.

Experiments prove that eyes from the "seed end" produce potatoes that
mature earliest; they are also smallest. Those from the large or stem
end are largest, latest, and least in numbers. Eyes from the middle
produce tubers of very uniform size.

If small, ill-shaped potatoes be planted on the same ground for three
successive years, the results will give the best variety a bad name.

Much is gained by changing seed. No two varieties are made up of the
same constituents exactly in the same proportion; hence, a soil may be
exhausted for the best development of one, and still be fitted to meet
the demands of another. Even when the same variety is desired,
experience shows the great benefit of planting seed grown on a different
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.

PLANTING AND MANURING.

Early kinds should be planted as soon as the ground has become
sufficiently dry and warm. Late market varieties should be planted about
two weeks later than the early ones. Unquestionably more bushels can be
obtained per acre by planting in drills than in hills, but the labor of
cultivating in drills is much the greater.

Prepare the ground by thorough plowing, making it decidedly mellow. Mark
it out four feet apart each way, if to be planted in hills, by plowing
broad, flat-bottomed furrows about three inches deep. At the crossings
drop three pieces of potato, cut, as directed, in sections of two or
three eyes each. Place the pieces so as to represent the points of a
triangle, each piece being about a foot distant from each of the other
two. If the cut side is put down, it is better; cover about two inches
deep. Where land is free from stone and sod, the covering may be well
and rapidly done with a light plow. Immediately after planting, sprinkle
over and around each hill a large handful of unleached wood-ashes and
salt, (a half-bushel of fine salt mixed with a barrel of ashes is about
the right proportion.) If a