178 ESCULENT ROOTS. 



603. The quantity of starch is greatest in winter. Ger 

 mination rapidly decreases it in spring, and hence potatoes 

 are less mealy and palatable. Since the prevalence of the 

 potato rot, the amount of starch in most of the varieties 

 has very much diminished. It is worthy of remark that 

 the wild potato plant contains but little, if any, nutriment. 



004. With good management and in a good season, a 

 fair crop of potatoes may be obtained from almost any 

 soil, but they do best on a loose, mellow, virgin soil, or one 

 newly cleared, and the liability to rot is less in such soils 

 than on a heavy retentive one, or on peat land which before 

 the rot first appeared often produced very large crops. 

 A strong, deep, warm loam with a porous subsoil is 

 especially fitted for this crop. 



605. Very few plants require so little preparation of the 

 land for cultivation as the potato, and a large yield has 

 been obtained by merely dropping the tubers along the 

 side of the furrow on the turned up sod, and back-fur 

 rowing to cover them. 



606. v Strongly heating manures, such as that from the 

 l&amp;gt;;irnyard while still unfermen ted, which were formerly 

 much used for potatoes, have been found by experience 

 to increase the liability to disease, and hence should be 

 avoided, if possible, and if used at all they should be 

 ploughed in rather than applied in the hill. Ashes or 

 plaster of Paris may be used in the hill to advantage. 



607. The potato may be cut into pieces before planting, 

 each piece containing one or more eyes or germs, 

 and a certain proportion of the body of the potato. The 

 latter furnishes nourishment to the germ in the first 

 shirrs of its growth. Cutting is often judicious, and 

 always so when the potatoes to be used as seed are to be 



