This section is from the book "The Gardener's Monthly And Horticulturist V27", by Thomas Meehan. See also: Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long.
The amazing reproductive capacity of some insects is more than equalled in the vegetable world. The seeds in a single orchid capsule are capable of making millions of plants. The spores from a single Puff-ball might give Puff-balls to every square mile in the whole United States. Nature provides checks to the enormous increase which such plants are capable of. Man, however, can control the elements in some measure, and when he tries his hand at the removal of the obstructions, we see what plants can do. At a recent meeting of the Summit Co. (Ohio) Horticultural Society, during the discussion, Aaron Teeple told how Chas. C. Miller, of Akron, raised 1,677¾ pounds of the Dakota Red potato last year from a single pound of seed. The tubers were put under glass and several crops of sprouts taken. These were carefully transplanted, and when well established they were set out in the open air.
 
Continue to: