differ widely in their powers of reproduction. As a rule, the most productive varieties require the least quantity of seed; and I am convinced, by actual experiment, that some kinds will produce more large and marketable potatoes from planting single, healthy, well-developed eyes, than will be obtained by planting any larger quantity. With other kinds, I have found single eyes insufficient. For, while some sorts will produce from five to seven stalks to an eye, others will give but one or two; and if the latter should be a variety of only moderate productiveness, the single eye would not be enough to give the best yield. The Early Rose, and most of its seedlings, I have found to yield more and finer potatoes from pieces of one or two eyes, than where whole potatoes were planted.

Time will not allow me to enlarge upon the commercial value of the potato, nor have I statistics at hand to enable me to make full and accurate statements in this respect. The annual potato crop of the United States is probably not far from one hundred and twenty millions of bushels. The crop in Ohio, from 1860 to 1870, ranged from near five to over ten millions bushels per annum. The smallest yield reported during that time was for 1865, at 4,827,354 bushels, and the average per acre planted was 66 bushels. The largest yield occurred in 1869, which was 10,274,605 bushels, with an average per acre of 86.44. The smallest average yield in any year was 1867, which gave but 65 bushels to the acre. The largest was 93 bushels per acre, in 1860; and the average for ten years was 76.08 bushels. Prices during that time had a wide range, varying from 20 cents to $1 per bushel.

Among culinary vegetables, I think we may safely claim that the potato stands preeminent. And there is no other whose use is so extensive among civilized nations. It seems so perfectly adapted to the wants of the human system, it rarely palls upon the appetite, and may be found constantly upon the tables of all classes, and at all seasons of the year. To the poor, it gives "flour without a mill, and bread without an oven;" and to the rich, an article of higher intrinsic value than the dear-bought luxuries of foreign climes. It is withal so readily and cheaply grown, and so easily kept, it forms a very large portion of the food of the human family wherever its production is practicable. Both in the elevated table-lands of the sunny South, and in the sheltered valleys of the frigid North, it finds a congenial home. Its yield to the acre is larger, its area wider, and its production easier than that of our famous Indian corn. In the United States, the potato occupies the third place among our vegetable productions, wheat and corn alone exceeding it in importance and value. Whatever, therefore, tends to improve the potato, may be regarded as a work of benevolence; and, as a necessary consequence, whatever impairs its character or lessens its production, assumes the nature of a national calamity.

Of the value of the potato for the feeding of stock, I do not feel qualified to speak, having never experimented in that way, except in the most desultory manner, and wholly without the accurate observation necessary to make a report valuable. The admitted superiority of Indian corn, and the comparatively high price of potatoes in my section, have precluded their use in this way to any considerable extent; and I doubt if the systematic feeding of potatoes to stock is at this time extensively practiced anywhere in Ohio. About 25 per cent. of the bulk of the potato is classed as nutritious, but I have no doubt it has a value as winter food for stock far above this, in furnishing a succulent substitute for grass, so necessary to the health of those grazing animals, which often suffer from exclusive feeding upon dry or concentrated food. For sheep and for milch cows, the use of potatoes is undoubtedly beneficial in winter. Sheep are easier kept in good health and condition by their use in connection with dry feed And for

cows, they increase the volume and richness of milk without imparting the unpleasant flavor which the feeding of turnips and some other vegetables so often produces. At least, the small and refuse potatoes might be much better employed in this way than by using them for seed, and thus weakening and degenerating their race.

In this connection, I am reminded that there is one use of the potato to which I have not alluded, but which is so common, I may be excused for giving it a passing notice; and that is, its use as an exponent of human character. If we hear an individual spoken of as "small potatoes," we at least infer that he is not regarded as possessing the highest ability, or very extraordinary attainments; but if he is further characterized as ' "small potatoes, and few in the hill," language fails to express any lower depth of utter insignificance.

A few words upon the production of new varieties from seed, and I will bring this somewhat rambling and discursive paper to a close. My experiments in this line have been to me interesting, and I hope may prove of some value to others. The impression most deeply fixed upon my mind by this pursuit is, that it is one of extreme uncertainty. For, while some of my efforts have resulted in simple reproductions of the varieties from which seed were taken, without apparent change or improvement, in other cases there has been the most wonderful diversity from the parent stock. I will here remark, that in all accounts which I find descriptive of seedling potatoes, it is stated that the product the first year will be small tubers, about the size of boys' marbles; the second year, reaching the average size of hens' eggs; and that a third year is required to attain their full size and development. In my earlier efforts, this was, very nearly, my own experience. But upon the introduction of the Early Rose potato, five years ago, I purchased a half bushel for $20; from their descendants I gathered a few seed-balls, and the following season raised forty seedling plants. There was a great difference in the appearance of these plants while growing, though all were planted at the same time, in as nearly as practicable the same soil, and had the same treatment and cultivation throughout. There was also much difference in their period of ripening, as indicated by cessation of growth, and dying of the stalks. They were dug in succession as they ripened; and it was then found there was even greater diversity in the appearance and character of the potatoes than in their growth. Some were very small, some medium, and a few large. Some were white-skinned, others running through all gradations of color, from pink to deep, purplish red. Nearly every shape known among potatoes was also represented; some were long, some round, others very irregular. In productiveness, their differences were not less remarkable. Some plants produced only two to four small tubers, the size of filberts, the weight of which would scarcely reach an ounce. Others yielded much more; in a few instances, giving a dozen or so of tubers, varying from the size of a pullets' egg to a weight of half a pound-the product of two plants reaching as high as two and a half pounds each. This I regarded as quite extraordinary, and with a single exception, exceeds any thing I have ever produced. This one exception was remarkable from the first for unusual strength, and vigor of growth, remaining green and growing longer than any of its companions. It was not dug till about the middle of October, and was then found to have produced twenty potatoes, the largest of which weighed three-quarters of a pound, and the aggregate weight of the whole six and a half pounds. This was by far the most surprising result I had ever produced, or of which I could hear, or find any record. Its wonderful productiveness may be better understood when I state that the yield of an acre at this rate, planted in drills three feet apart, and two feet apart in the rows, would be 786 bushels. The quality of this potato was tested by boiling and baking, and found very satisfactory, being fine-grained,

white, dry and of good flavor, very much like that of Early Rose. The following year, about 'three pounds were cut to single eyes and planted, yielding 450 pounds, or about three barrels of large and handsome potatoes. Samples were sent to various parts of the country for trial, and very flattering reports, both of quality and productiveness, were returned. It still continues far the most productive variety I have ever grown. All my experiments have been conducted upon ground of moderate fertility, without special preparation, and with only the most ordinary garden culture. I may add that many others have exceeded me in the growth and productiveness of this potato; and I have, the present season, numerous letters from parties who have grown from 100 to as high as 315 pounds from one single pound planted. One party in Pennsylvania, who planted on a large scale, reports sixty bushels from eighteen pounds planted. In all these cases, the potatoes were cut to single eyes, and planted one piece to the hill. And I am satisfied that this variety will produce better potatoes in every way from single eyes, so planted, than from any greater number.

Of the forty seedlings named, I selected from the most promising, thirteen for planting the second year. The next year, the number was reduced to seven, and the following year, to three. These are still retained, as worthy of continued trial; but I am not at all certain that a year or two longer will not reduce the number to the one variety just described. I am still growing seedlings, and expect to continue to do so. But I have nothing of sufficient interest to be worthy of further report.

January 6, 1873.

GEO. W. CAMPBELL.

Mr. Campbell, in illustrating some portions of his address, exhibited a large plate of very fine-looking potatoes, originated by himself. In reply to an inquiry of Judge Jones as to the variety exhibited, he replied that they were "Campbell's Late Rose."

QUESTION BY A MEMBER. What time in the season do you plant? MR. CAMPBELL. I plant usually quite early. I think I plantcu the seed from which those atsed in the latter part of March. They were planted in pots in the hot-house, and from these pots set out in rows in the garden. As the seeds are very small, if planted in the open ground the plants will be very weak and small when they come up, and likely to perish.

Col. G. S. Innis read the following paper on

THE POTATO.

The potato belongs to the genus Solanum. This genus enontais, besides the potato, some very useful plants, such as the tomato and the egg-plant among esculents, the thorn apple and capsicum among medicines, the henbane and deadly nightshade among poisons, as well as that vilest of all weeds, tobacco.

"The potato," says Dr. Neill," is now considered the most useful esculent cultivated." Who could have expected to find so useful a plant among the genus Solanum, most of which are deleterious? The Solanum Tuberosum, the common potato, has roots bearing tubers. It is so well known to every one as to need from me no further description. It is a native of South America, along the west coast, in Chili and Peru. It was also found in Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1584, and by him carried to England, now nearly

three hundred years ago. Stephens, in his Book of the Farm, calls the potato "the palladium against famine," because it enters so largely into the food of the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland. On the contrary, the French were very slow in adopting it as an article of human food. Fifty years ago the potato was scarcely used in the East Indies. They were, in fact, but little known. But their production and use have wonderfully increased in the last twenty-five years. Thirty years ago they were not raised, as large crops, in our fields in Ohio, as at present. As the production of the potato has so much increased within the last fifty years, all over the world, it will be well to inquire into its value as an article of food both for man and beast.

The potato is the cheapest of all root crops as an article of food for stock. If cooked and mixed with cornmeal, its value will be greatly increased. In fact, it is a great waste to feed any roots in their raw state. We have nothing in this country, where land is plenty and labor high, that is so good and cheap for fattening our hogs, as to raise corn and turn the hogs into it, without husking or gathering Still, where any one raises a considerable quantity of potatoes they will have many bushels of small ones, unfit for table use, and the very best use we can make of these is to sort them ont for food for our stock. Where they are left in among those we take to the market, they lessen the value of the whole more than they are worth. These small potatoes being of no use to the purchaser, unless indeed he has stock to feed, are generally wasted, or worse, left in the cellar to rot, and perhaps produce disease in the family.

Stephens says that cooke'l potatoes are worth six times as much as turnips, bushel for bushel, in fattening pigs. He says that fifteen bushels of steamed or cooked potatoes, mixed with nine bushels of cornmeal, will make a pig weighing 300 pounds ripe fat in sixty days. The food should be given at regular hours, three times a day. Potatoes used in this way will be found not only good and nourishing food, but also good appetizers. They keep the hogs' stomach in good condition, and as a change of food, prevent them from becoming clied on too much corn. They likewise expand the stomach and extend the frame, so the hog can take on more fat and thus make heavier pork. The best lots of pork I have made for several years have been where the hogs, on the start, were fed a perai portion of vena potatoes mixed with their corn.

All that has been said in favor of the potato as 100 101 onlar appline equally well to fattening cattle. Care should, however, be taken to wash them well before feeding, or at the time of mixing with corn cooked or ground into meal.

But as an article of food for milch cows, potatoes are unsurpassed by any other root, if indeed they are by slops made entirely of grain. That is to say, a mixture of potatoes and cornmeal is much better than either alone for milch cows. Even where small pota toes are fed in the raw state, as a change, in connection with corn, they will be found to largely increase the flow of milk, as well as keep the cow in better condition. Her hair will be brighter and smoother, and she will be less liable to become constipated; in fact, will be more like her condition in summer, while running out on good pasture.

Some object to feeding potatoes, because they contain so much water. Some varieties contain more than others, yet seventy-five per cent. of water is very near the average. Our own bodies, as a whole, contain nearly eighty per cent. of water, and the same is true of all the lower animals. Even a luscious beef steak has nearly seventy-five per per cent. of water. Do we, therefore, contend that beef steak is not a good article of food? In our present state of knowledge as to how our food nourishes us, or why one kind of food is more nutritious than another, these chemical analyses are, perhaps, not as good a test of the value of any particular kind of food as to take a certain quantity of the different kinds and test their values, by seeing which will require the least quantity to

satisfy a man a given length of time. I know of no nation who use the meal or flour of any grain whatever, unmixed with other kinds of alimentary matter, as oil, milk, fruit, etc. Yet potatoes, with common salt and water, have, in Ireland, been known to nourish men completely. There are hundreds of instances where persons have lived entirely on potatoes and salt, with water only, and yet have been robust, capable of hard labor, healthy and long-lived, as persons fed plentifully on the grains and animal food. So, I think, it is better to take results rather than theories, at least as much so as practice is better than preaching. Potatoes contain about ten or twelve pounds of starch to the bushel, or about one-half as much as Indian corn.

According to Sir H. Davy, potatoes contain from twenty to twenty-six per cent. of nutritive matter; of this matter, fifteen to twenty per cent. is starch, two per cent, is sugar, and four per cent. gluten. The rest is water; for they conta in no insoluble matter, consequently are entirely appropriated by the alimentary duct or canal.

Loudon says: "Potatoes, as an article of human food, are next, to wheat, of the greatest importance in the eye of the political economist." An acre of potatoes will feed double the number of people that can be fed from an acre of wheat. They are relished by almost every one. We expect to see them as constantly on our tables as bread itself. No one thinks of ordering potatoes when calling for a beef steak or mutton chops. They expect them as surely as they do bread. Having no disagreeable odors or tastes, they are almost universally relished by rich and poor alike; and as Prof. H. C. Worsham well says, in the Philadelphia Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences, "They are flour without a mill, and bread without an oven; and at all seasons of the year, form an agrecable and wholesome dish, without expensive condiments." They are much used, too, in making bread. All recipes for yeast, they enter largely into the ingredients to form that useful compound. Some bakers withom largely with flour in making bread, when they can be bought sufficiently cheap, even up to one-round sometimes as high as one-third of the whole mass. Bread thus composed in part of potatoes retains its micture much longer than when made from flour only; in fact, is as good, sweet and equally nourishing.

Notwithstanding all that has been or can be said in favor of potatoes as an article of food for stock, candor compels us to say that they have some very serious objections to their general, or more properly speaking, to their universal use-their cost of production in this country, where labor is so scarce and costly. It is very different here from what it is in most parts of Europe. There they study to save the acres, here we must save the labor; land is not of so much consequence. We have more land by half than we can tend well.

Then, again, they are a bulky, unhandy article, troublesome to dig, and in wet seasons to get in, in good order; difficult of storage, having to exclude them from the frost. Finally, they require more labor in feeding than corn. All this can be said, too, in reference to any other root crop. Our soil and climate are so natural to the growth of corn, and we can produce it so abundantly, and with so little labor, one man in three months making from one thousand to fifteen hundred bushels, that we may as well conclude that root crops of any kind, for other than food for man, will be found unprofitable, until labor becomes cheaper and plentier than land. To raise a crop of corn, turn your hogs into the field, and let them harvest it themselves, does not require more than from onethird to one-half the labor it would require to dig, boil and feed a crop of potatoes, after growing them. Our country is so wonderfully blessed with that indigenous plant, corn, as to exclude root crops as food for our stock. No one can use them, on a large scale and to a considerable extent, without being ruined. The cullings is all that can be made