270 BPwITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. XXll. 



separately, or in cuttings containing two or more together, a saving is 

 made in the quantity ; but an extraordinary opinion is entertained regard- 

 ing the best method of performing this operation. 



Among numberless experiments which liave been made with a view to 

 compare the produce of plantations of different sizes of wliole tubers, and 

 sets from different sizes of cuttings, tliose of entire potatoes reported to 

 the Bath Society were generally stated to be superior. Dr. Anderson 

 found that the crop was in some measure proportionate to the weights of 

 the sets ; and that it was more profitable to plant small potatoes than 

 small cuttings. Others, however, found that the difference in acreable 

 produce, between large and small, cut or uncut potatoes for sets, was quite 

 immaterial ; but that the saving in the quantity sown, was so much in 

 favour of the cuttings as to require only twenty bushels, while whole pota- 

 toes consumed thirty-seven bushels per acre*. Yet, according to a report 

 made to the Dublin Society of Agriculture, it was stated, on comparison 

 with sets cut from reasonably large and small tubers, that the produce in 

 favour of the former was as 84 to 64t ; and another well informed gentle- 

 man states, " lie has uniformly found in all his experience that large sets 

 of potatoes made a more productive return than small ones. And upon trial, 

 both in garden and field, he has repeatedly found that planting wliole 

 ])utatoes, even though large, very much increases the crop. In this way, 

 however, they require to be planted thinner, as the stems, being stronger and 

 more luxuriant, occupy more spacej.'' 



To set this point at rest, five plots of ground of equal size, and as 

 nearly as possible of equal quality, were also lately selected by the London 

 Horticultural Society for the growth of five different varieties: one half of 

 which being planted with whole tubers, and the other with sets containing 

 but one eye each ; and, being placed at equal distances — eighteen inches 

 apart — the result was as follows : — 



Weight when taken up. 

 Species. 



Early Manly . 



Shaw's 20 



Ri'd-nosed kidney 

 Pink-eyed Scotch 

 Champion . 



The whole tubers appeared above ground, in each instance, three or four 

 days earlier than the sets, and the haulm became somewhat longer; but 

 the experiment shows that, although the total amount thus estimated to 

 have been obtained is, 



tons. cwt. lb. 

 From whole tubers, . . 113 2 17 

 single eyes . . . 1 1 1 3 54 



thus giving an apparent difference in five acres of about two tons, yet it 

 was hardly more than the difference between the weight of the tubers and 

 the sets originally planted§. 



* Bath Soc, Papers, vol. i. p. 28 ; vol. iv. pp. 14, 20, 22 ; vol. v. pp. 127, 234 ; vol. vi. 

 p. 207. 



f Rep. to the Dublin Soc. p. 100. J Farmers Mag. vol. iii. p. 215. 



§ Trans, of the Hort. Soc, 2d Ser. vol. i. art. 55. In some recent experiments reported 

 to the Highland Society, on tha planting of cuttings from large tubers and small pota- 

 toes, both cut and uncut, it was found that the produce from the large tubers was in 

 every instance superior. Tr;ins. of llie Soc. N. S. vol. iv. p. 300. "The cuts are never 

 made into more than four pieces for plants, and that through the nose, or most remote 

 end from the parent stem." No, xxix. p. 40. 



