ROOTS AND ESCULENT TUBERS. 



339 



and carefully measuring the product of each separate row, each farmer could easily settle this 

 question to his own individual satisfaction, providing the soil of each of the different plant 

 ings were of about equal fertility. Some of the old works on agriculture recommend 

 from six to eight eyes to a hill, but repeated and careful experiments have proven this to be 

 altogether too large a quantity. 



The following cut will show how a potato can readily be cut to a single eye and each eye 

 be supported by an equal amount of flesh, which will be sufficient to start it into a healthy 

 and vigorous growth. Many may consider this method of cutting too troublesome where the 

 common varieties are used, but by it 

 only about half the usual amount of 

 tubers need be used for planting ; and 

 to those who wish to obtain a large crop 

 from a small quantity of choice potatoes 

 this method will prove quite valuable. 



This is done by holding the stem-end 

 down, keeping it in a perpendicular po 

 sition throughout the cutting. With a 

 thin-bladed sharp knife the first eye 

 nearest the stem-end can be removed by 

 placing the knife equally distant between 

 it and the eye next above it in the rota 

 tion, sloping the cut towards the inden 

 ture at the stem-end, and taking the 

 flesh of the tuber with it ; then turn the 

 potato around until the next eye appears 

 which will be in a line a little above 

 the former and remove it in the same 

 manner ; and thus continue until all the 

 eyes have been removed. It will be no 

 ticed that after three or four eyes have 

 thus been removed the bottom part of 

 the tuber will have something of a pyr 

 amidal form, also that each piece will be 

 similar in form, the eye near the central 

 portion of the flesh of the tuber which 

 is to start it into growth and give it sup 

 port. The cut on the right shows what 

 remains of the potato after all but the 

 small eyes, sometimes called the &quot;seed 

 end,&quot; have been removed, and the dot 

 ted lines represent how to separate these 

 in a similar manner. CUTTING TO A SINGLE EYE. 



Planting. A fertile soil, ploughed rather deep, and finely pulverized, in order to render 

 it as mellow as possible, gives the most successful results in growing potatoes. Deep tillage, 

 fine pulverization, with good drainage, will give a light friable soil, and allow the excessive 

 moisture of an unusually wet season to pass readily through it, leaving an increased fertility 

 for the benefit of the crop ; while if the season be an unusually dry one, abundant facts sub 

 stantiate the truth of the statement, that such conditions render the soil better able to with 

 stand drought, however contradictory and paradoxical it may seem. Potatoes may be planted 

 either in hills or drills, some preferring the former method and others the latter. Hill-planting 

 admits of a more thorough stirring of the soil in after cultivation, as it permits the cultivator 



