476 Report on the Cultivation of Potatoes. 



6. What has been the rotation of crops ? 



7. What acreage of potatoes has been usually planted, and what has been 

 the usual interval after the last potato-crop ? 



8. Describe the preparation of the land for potatoes, and give about the 

 dates of the several operations. 



9. What quantities and kinds of manure have been applied, and when 

 put on ? 



10. When have the setts been planted, for early and late varieties re- 

 sijcctively ? 



11. How much seed has been planted per acre ? 



12. Are the tubers planted whole or cut, or is this regulated according to 

 the sort of potatoes ? 



13. How wide are the rows? How far apart are the setts planted in the 

 rows ? Or what differences are made in width and distance apart for different 

 sorts of potatoes ? 



14. Describe the after-cultivation of the potato-crop, giving approximate 

 dates for each operation. 



15. To what extent have your crops been diminished by potato-disease ? 



16. Under what states of the weather and other circumstances, have yonr 

 crops suffered most from the potato-disease ? 



17. Give, if possible, precise dates of the appearance of the potato-disease 

 on your farm. 



18. What varieties of potato have you grown ? 



19. Which of these varieties of potato have you found the least liable to 

 attack by the potato-disease '? 



20. Have you found a better result from large-sized than from small-sized 

 setts? 



21. Is it your practice to renew your stock of potatoes by purchase from 

 Scotland or elsewhere, and for how many- years is such stock grown by you 

 without material deterioration ? 



22. If you have found that differences in the management or manuring of 

 the potato-land, or in the selection or planting of setts, render the crops more 

 or less liable to injury from the potato-disease, be so good as to describe the 

 facts in detail. 



23. If you have found that any application of lime, sulphur, or other 

 materials to the foliage or haulm of potatoes, after the apj)earance of the 

 disease, tends to arrest its spread, be so good as to describe the process- 

 adopted, stating the extent of the dif>ease at the time of application, and its 

 subsequent course. 



24. What is your experience of cutting off or pulling up the tops imme- 

 diately on the appearance of disease, and at different stages in the growth of 

 the plant? Does it diminish the extent of the disease? Does it tend to- 

 hasten supertuberating or second growth ? 



25. Have you found it better to harvest as early as possible, or to allow the 

 crop to remain after maturity some time in the ground ? 



This Report is confined entirely to the answers to the fore- 

 going queries, and does not touch upon either Professor de 

 Bary's scientific investigations, or upon the results hitherto 

 obtained by the growth of the competing varieties of potato on 

 the several experimental plots. The reports on those branches 

 of the investigation will be published as they are received from 

 the gentlemezi who have undertaken the duty of compiling them. 

 For the present, I wish to concentrate the attention of those. 



