January 27, 1870. ) 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



RIDGE-ANDTRENCH SYSTEM OF GROWING 

 POTATOES. 



NEVER like to own that I have been busy, 

 for if so, what would the public care ? But 

 I must state the fact now, because it is the 

 cause of my having kept " A Subscriber, but 

 a Novice," so long waiting for an answer to 

 his letter, in which he asks for a detail of my 

 mode of cultivating the Potato. 



The system of growing Potatoes which I 

 have adopted and written about for seventeen 

 years, with the latest improvements upon it, 

 I will now state for the information of your correspondent, 

 and, perhaps, of others. It is worthy of note, in the first 

 place, that I have grown Potatoes on the same site for 

 twenty-three years, but I never could succeed in growing 

 a handsome sample or a fine-flavoured crop till I had felt 

 my way into what I have always named the ridge-and- 

 trench plan. It is admirably adapted for rich heavy loams, 

 clays, and wet soils. It would answer " A Subscriber's " 

 purpose exactly, and it does especially well with me on 

 this rich garden loam, overshadowed with trees. 



I never use fresh manure at the planting of Potatoes. 

 To insure the economical working of the soil, I have 

 adopted a sort of third course, two-thirds of the ground 

 being bastard or half-trenched before the middle of March, 

 by degrees as opportunities occur — namely, as the crops 

 of the Cabbage tribe are cleared from the ground ; and 

 then, far preferably to dung, I use quicklime fresh from 

 the kiln, at the rate of about fifteen bushels to the rood, 

 placing it in half-bushel heaps equally over the soil in 

 fine dry weather two or three days before I intend plant- 

 ing. Immediately after the heaps of lime are distri- 

 buted, I pour about a half-gallon of water on each from 

 the rose of a watering pot, and at once completely cover 

 the lime with the surrounding soil ; as it slakes and 

 bursts in white powdery heads from the sides of the heaps, 

 I shovel over them more soil till the bursting ceases, 

 which will prevent the caustic properties of the lime being 

 lost, and serve as a guide to inform us that the lumps are 

 dissolved, and that the lime is ready to be evenly dis- 

 tributed over the surface of the ground. The soil should 

 then be at once worked about .'i inches in depth with a 

 scratch trident, or be pointed over with one of Parkes's 

 3teel forks to about the same depth, but not deeper, as 

 lime is sure to fight its way downwards of its own accord, 

 too quickly if anything. The same may be said of cinder 

 ashes ; but I am no friend to cinders, excepting on strong 

 clay land, and even then for garden ground I take care to 

 use only the finest siftings from them. Coarse cinders 

 are cold hungry applications, and far better adapted for use 

 in a well-drawing stove or furnace. Wood ashes are excel- 

 lent given at the rate of about ten bushels to a rood — I am 

 a regular customer to a neighbour who burns nothing 

 else but wood — so are soot and salt at the rate of about 

 ten bushels of soot and one hundredweight of salt to a 

 quarter of an acre ; likewise mortar rubbish in almost 

 any quantity. These top-dressings are, of course, most 

 No. 401.— Vol. XVIU., New Series. 



advantageously administered, when they can be procured, 

 alternately. 



The other third of the ground mentioned we shall sup- 

 pose to be occupied early in autumn with the main crop 

 of Potatoes ; it should, as soon as they are aken up, be 

 thoroughly trenched, if it has been half- trenched twice 

 before— that is, merely had the shovellings cast on the top 

 of the first spit of soil dug out. and the bottom, or subsoil, 

 forked over, broken, and left there, the ground being thus. 

 to a great extent, subjected to the ameliorating influences ot 

 the atmosphere. It is always best to avoid raising to the 

 surface a full-spit-deep of subsoil which has not been dis- 

 turbed for a generation, or probably never before ; for then 

 a poor crop, or scarcely any crop at all, must be expected 

 for a year or two. Therefore, provided our third com- 

 partment has undergone the half-trenchings, thoroughly 

 trench it whilst the sun is in full power as soon as pos- 

 sible after the ground is cleared of the Potatoes. It is of 

 the first consequence to know that trenching, or, in fact, 

 moving the soil in any way for cultural purposes, should 

 preferably be done during dry hot weather, in order to 

 secure the beneficial results to the soil which arise from 

 the action of the atmosphere. Never on any considera- 

 tion persuade yourself to carry out these operations, or to 

 trundle manure over the land during a rainy time, or when 

 the ground is wet, or to trench down lumps of soil when 

 the ground is frozen. 



Well, during the dry hot days of autumn, I manure my 

 third portion after the following manner. We hear much 

 about earth closets and house sewage now-a-days as being 

 something new and difficult to deal with ; but it is no new 

 thing for me to say that one of our sewage tanks, and our 

 earth closets here, have been in use for upwards of twenty 

 years ; and the first liquid-manure tank 1 caused to be 

 made was formed thirty-six years ago. We have two sewage 

 tanks here at present— I require another— the sediment 

 from which is cleared out once a- year, and mixed with 

 road-scrapings, along with the contents of the earth-closet 

 pits, in a large opening dug in a back yard for the pur- 

 pose. To all this are added, as the process goes on, the 

 contents of the mixen, an agglomeration consisting of the 

 refuse from the garden, a decayed hotbed, chiefly of rotten 

 leaves, and all the sweepings and refuse that are to be 

 collected from a house and grounds in a country- town 

 suburb, the goodness of wliich has been carefully preserved 

 by constant siftings over with dry earth or fine cinder 

 ashes during the collection of the mass. This mixture is 

 wheeled on to the ground as the trenching proceeds, and 

 no more of it at a time than can be worked into the soil 

 during the next few hours; for this reason— this muck 

 pie of mine, although not particularly offensive to the 

 smell, is by no means inviting to the eye when lying in 

 heaps about this garden, which is partly overlooked by the 

 living-room windows. Besides, having been most anxious 

 through many months to retain the ammonia in it, would 

 it be consistent now to spread it over a large space of 

 ground to allow the air to unlock the precious gases, when 

 one knows how highly beneficial those gases are as fer- 

 tilisers, and that by quickly locking them up in the soil we 



No. 1113.-VOI.. XL11I., OLO. Series. 



