The Market Growers Gazette, of London, England, reports that Mr. A. Findlay, Mairsland, Auchtermuchty, Scotland, sold one season to five leading growers whose names are given five seed potatoes at L 20 each (which would be, perhaps, $500 a peck).  He says enthusiastically:  “It is as perfectly round-shaped a potato as can be imagined.  There is a slight dash of pink on the outer rim of the eye.  My stock of it is very small, only 126 lb. and I do not care to sell any.  If next year’s crop yields as well as this year’s, we shall have twenty times that quantity.”  Mr. Findlay has other seed potatoes, just as high priced, for which he wants $125 per lb., which, he says, “means that I do not want to sell any.”

This shows what progressive people think of the real value of good seed.

It is worth mentioning that “The land on which these are grown is not highly manured; the only artificial manure that it has received is about 200 lb. of potash per acre.  It has the drawback of being rather stony.”

Of course this is “a fad”; it is doubtful if it will pay any one to give such prices for seed except to sell to some bigger fool than himself.  Of course, also, the market for a particular fancy thing may soon be overstocked, but it seems to be a nice thing for the Findlays meanwhile, and it does good in teaching people to appreciate good things.

Yet the average potato patcher prudently saves his small potatoes for next year’s seed, which is just as if a breeder were to keep the colts that were too poor to sell, to be the parents of his herd.

In the dark ages of farming—­to wit, in 1881, for this is a true story—­a minister of the Gospel came into possession, by inheritance, of a fifteen-acre farm a short way from Philadelphia.  He found the soil a reddish, somewhat gravelly clay, and so worn out from years of cropping that it did not support two cows and a horse.  City born and bred, he was encumbered with no knowledge of agriculture which had to be unlearned.  He began a careful and systematic study of the agricultural literature, and ultimately developed a novel system of dairy farming to which he adhered religiously.

The farm Iying near the city is high-priced land; for this reason, and because of the limited acreage, the cows were kept in the barn the year round.  For six years his bill for veterinary services was $1.50, while the income from the milk of his seventeen cows was about $2400 a year.  In addition, from four to six head of young cattle were sold annually, netting about $500 a year.  As the stock on the farm was stall fed every particle of plant food contained in the stable manure, liquid as well as solid, was utilized.  No fertilizer was ever purchased.  Yet all of the “roughage” for thirty head of stock was raised on the thirteen acres of available soil.  Only $625 a year was expended for concentrated feeding stuffs.  The net earnings of the farm for the period averaged more than $1000 a year.  And this was during the early days of his experience; later he made more.