110 Cultivation of Early Potatoes. 



a small quantity of the genuine kind and rear their own seed, 

 if they would avoid the disappointment of a mixture. 



It is only reasonable to conclude that if you have a mixed lot 

 some will be ready to be lifted whilst others are only just 

 forming their tubers, so that you must either let them stand till 

 the latter are ready, by which means you lose the advantage of 

 an early market, or you must get them up as they are and sacri- 

 fice the late ones ; either way involves a loss. 



The growers who possess genuine seed are loth to part with it ; 

 to obtain a feAv stones weight at a high price is considered a 

 favour. If you can obtain some at Is. 6^. per stone you may 

 consider yourself very fortunate ; we have known as much as 

 2^. Qd. asked and given. 



In cultivating the late varieties we would strongly recommend 

 the adoption of sprouting, which we believe to be, if not a panacea, 

 yet one of the best of the few remedies hitherto prescribed. 

 Set the red eye and fluke when the land is in fine order, wait if 

 necessary until as late even as the end of April or beginning of 

 May. Set them well sprouted, and you will be astonished at the 

 rapidity and luxuriance of their growth. In the first place you 

 insure a p]ant, you have no misses, no blind eyes, but up they 

 come regular and equal, like a well-disciplined regiment of sol- 

 diers, every one in its place. They will be ready for " getting 

 up " full a month before others set in the ordinary way ; and when 

 the annual complaint arises that the disease has again appeared, 

 you will have taken up your crop in a good state of preservation. 



We prefer getting them before they have attained a state of 

 maturity, rather than run the risk of obtaining greater weight by 

 allowing them to remain longer in the ground to ripen. The 

 tubers will not be quite so large, but they will be sound ; and 

 if the cultiv^ator were to calculate the almost endless expense 

 of turning over his store and picking out the diseased ones, he 

 would find himself a considerable gainer in securing a crop of 

 sound middle-sized potatoes. 



Last year both red-eyes and flukes were taken up before they 

 were ripe : the skins were abrazed, and when brought home from 

 the field they presented a ragged and bruised appearance, any- 

 thing but sightly ; but in the course of a month or so this un- 

 sightliness disappeared, the tubers recovered, and became quite 

 mature ; when eaten tliey proved excellent. Many who saw them 

 at first exclaimed that they were spoilt, " what a pity it was, &c. ; 

 they would be good neither for eating nor for seed." But these 

 very potatoes kept sound and good, not one went bad, and the 

 last were eaten after Easter. 



Doubtless there exists a great obstacle to the large cultivator 



