782 PRACTICE OF AGRICULTURE. Part III. 



or break the shoots. Light is requisite as well as air, to strengthen and establish the 

 shoots ; on which account a green-house lias the advantage of a room, but a room answers 

 very well with a good window or two in it, and if to the sun still better. In this manner 

 they suffer them to remain till the planting season, giving them all the air possible by the 

 doors and windows, when it can be done with safety from frost : by this method the 

 shoots at the top become green, leaves are sprung, and are moderately hardy. They then 

 plant them in rows, in the usual method, by a setting-stick ; and carefully fill up the 

 cavities made by the setting-stick ; by this method they are enabled to bear a little frost 

 without injury. The earliest potatoe is the superfine white kidney ; from this sort, upon 

 the same ground, have been raised four crops ; having sets from the repository ready to 

 put in as soon as the other were taken up ; and a fifth crop is sometimes raised from the 

 same lands, the same year, of transplanted winter lettuce. The first crop had the ad- 

 vantage of a covering in frosty nights. It is remarked that this useful information was 

 communicated by J. Blundell, Ormskirk, and has hitherto been known only among a 

 very few farmers. 



4852. The after culture of potatoes consists in harrowing, hoeing, weeding, and earth- 

 ing up. All potatoes require to be earthed up, that is, to have at least one inch in depth 

 of earth heaped on their roots, and extending six or eight inches round their stem. The 

 reason of this is, that the tubers do not, properly speaking, grow under the soil, but 

 rather on, or just, partially, bedded in its surface. A coating of earth, therefore, is 

 found, by preserving a congenial moisture, greatly to promote their growth and magni- 

 tude, as well as to improve their quality, by preventing the potatoes from becoming green 

 on the side next the light. The earth may be thrown up from the trenches between the 

 beds by the spade ; or, where the potatoes are planted in rows, the operation may be 

 performed with a small plough, drawn by one horse, or by the hoe. In Scotland, where 

 the potatoe is extensively cultivated by the farmer, as food for cattle as well as man, the 

 plough is universally used. In Ireland, where the bed, or lazy-bed manner is adopted, 

 the earth is thrown up from the intervening trenches. The hoe is generally used by 

 market-gardeners. 



4853. The after culture, where potatoes are planted in ridgelets, as above descried (4850. ), 

 commences when the plants begin to rise above the surface. They are then harrowed 

 across, and afterwards the horse-hoe, or small hoeing plough, and the hand-hoe, are 

 repeatedly employed in the intervals, and between the plants, as long as the progress of 

 the crop will permit, or the state of the soil may require. The earth is then gathered 

 once, or oftener, from the middle of the intervals towards the roots of the plants, after 

 which any weeds that may be left must be drawn out by hand ; for when the radicles 

 have extended far in search of food, and the young roots begin to form, neither the 

 horse nor hand-hoe can be admitted without injury. 



4854. The after culture adopted in some parts of Devonshire is somewhat singular and 

 deserves to be noticed. The sets are there generally cut with three eyes and deposited 

 at the depth of three inches with the spade or dibber ; when the first shoot is three 

 inches high, prepare a harrow with thorns interwoven between the tines, and harrow the 

 ground over till all the weeds are destroyed, and not a shoot of the potatoes left. It 

 may seem strange that such an apparent destruction of a crop should cause an increase ; 

 but it may be affirmed as an incontestible fact, that by this means the produce 

 becomes more abundant. The reason appears to be this ; although three eyes are 

 left to a piece of potatoe, one always vegetates before the others, and the first shoot is 

 always single; that being broken off j there is for the present a cessation of vegetation. 

 The other eyes then begin to vegetate, and there appear fresh shoots from the broken eye ; 

 so that the vegetation is trebled, the earth made loose, and the lateral shoots more freely 

 expanded. If these hints are observed, the produce of potatoes, it is said, will exceed a 

 fifth of the crop obtained by the usual mode of cultivation. 



4855. Pinching off" the whole of the potatoe blossoms is a part of after culture not unwor- 

 thy the attention of the farmer. This may at first sight appear too minute a matter to 

 enter into the economy of farm management. But when it is considered that the seed 

 is the essential part of every plant, and that to which the ultimate efforts of nature are 

 always directed, it will be allowed that an important part of the nourishment of every 

 vegetable must be devoted for this purpose. In the case of the potatoe, every person 

 knows that the weight of the potatoe -apples, grown by a single plant, is very considerable. 

 Now we have seen (4837.) that apples maybe produced instead of tubers in early 

 potatoes, from whence it may justly be inferred, that more tubers may be produced in 

 late ones by preventing the growth of the apples. Such was the reasoning of Knight, 

 and by repeatedly making the experiment, he came to this conclusion, that in ordinary 

 cases of field culture, by pinching off the blossoms of late crops of potatoes, more than 

 one ton per acre of additional tubers will be produced. The experiments are related in 

 the second volume of The Horticultural Transactions, and the practice is similar to one 



