184 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



or ploughed, and thrown into beds of about three feet wide, first 

 formed by ridging or back-furrowing with the plough, and after 

 wards covered with earth, thrown from a ditch between the beds 

 about eighteen inches in width, and running between all the 

 beds. After this bed is smoothed off, the potatoes are planted 

 upon it, in rows, crosswise, at the distance of eighteen inches by 

 thirty inches apart, and they are then covered with about four 

 inches of earth taken out of the intermediate ditch with a spade. 

 After the potatoes are fairly above ground, they have a second 

 covering of four inches of earth, as before, and this comprehends 

 the whole of their cultivation in the lazy-bed fashion. When 

 they are planted in drills or ridges, the space between the ridges 

 is never suffered to be disturbed by a plough, but is simply dug 

 with a spade, as it is an important object to avoid injuring the 

 young fibrous roots of the plant, upon which the tubers are formed. 

 The potatoes are kept, in this way, with an occasional applica 

 tion of the hand to the weeds, entirely clean ; and the luxuriance 

 of their growth throughout a large field, as far as my observation 

 goes, was never surpassed. By his management of his manure, 

 sprinkling the heap with the liquid portions, and so keeping up, 

 through the summer, a slight but constant fermentation, not only 

 all the weeds thrown upon it are rotted, but the seeds of these 

 weeds are effectually destroyed. He says the largest crop of 

 potatoes which he ever produced was had in a field where the 

 sets were placed over the whole field, at a distance of a yard each 

 way from each other. He prefers always planting whole pota 

 toes, of a medium size, to cutting them. He showed me a 

 portion of the field, which had been planted with cuttings of 

 potatoes, sent him by a friend, of a new and valuable kind, and 

 which he cut with a view to planting more land ; but the differ 

 ence in their appearance was most marked, and showed an 

 inferiority of as one to three to those which were planted whole. 

 Ten bushels of seed he considers sufficient for planting an acre. 

 His turnips promised extremely well. I remarked to him that 

 they were sown in the drills very thickly. He replied that he 

 had never lost his crop by the fly, and he attributed his success 

 to two circumstances the first, to planting his seed two inches 

 deep, by which means the roots of the plant became extended and 

 strong before the plant showed itself above ground ; and the 

 second, by sowing a large quantity of seed ; if the flies took a 



