lections made from them at the following harvest, the best plants being again retained for the nursery plat and the balance used as seed.

A. Girard,' one of the foremost potato growers of France, selects his potatoes every year from those hills whose foliage is especially luxuriant. He uses the variety Richter's Imperator, and prepares the soil to a depth of 12 to 16 inches, giving a liberal application of barn-yard manure and fertilizers, acid phosphate, sulphate of potash, and nitrate of soda. He selects, for planting, tubers weighing from 31⁄2 to 4 ounces. When he cannot get such, he recommends that tubers of 7 ounces in weight be cut in two, and tubers of 101⁄2 ounces into three pieces-always cutting in the direction of the greatest length. He insists on the rejection of all potatoes weighing more than 11 ounces. If the potatoes available for planting weigh less than 31⁄2 ounces he places in each hill several smaller tubers, enough to bring the total weight to about 4 ounces. He lays great stress on the distance between the plants; the rows are 24 inches apart and the tubers are planted 19 inches in the rows, these distances having been determined to be best by careful experiment. He advises early planting, as soon as danger from frost is past. The crop should be well worked and all potatoes kept covered, and the tops well sprayed with Bordeaux mixture, and the crop not dug until all of the tops have withered. Farmers in the co-operative experiments under his direction report yields of 400 to 700 bushels per acre as common, and

1 E. S. R., V., p. 117.

even up to 1,353 bushels

of 20 to 25 per cent.

per acre with a starch content One farmer secured almost

10,000 pounds of starch per acre, probably one of the largest yields of carbohydrates ever obtained from an acre of land.