FARMERS' REGISTER— CULTURE OF POTATOES. 



287 



er to buy and wash, while the time saved in churn- 

 ing is very remarkable. — I think Irom the exi)eri- 

 ence that I have had trom my own cows, there is 

 a gain of about 25 per cent, of butter. The pro- 

 cess is simple. — Pans of a ])roper size will hold 

 about a pailful; those I have, arc made of zinc, 

 being more durable and not much more expensive. 

 When the cows are milked, the milk is strained 

 into the pan or pans and allowed to fc-to,nd twelve 

 "hours. The pan is then placed upon an iron 

 frame, over well burnt coals, where it mu.st be 

 carefully watched, and on the appearance of the 

 first bubble, taken oft" the fire; and after standing- 

 twelve or fourteen hours, according to the weather, 

 the cream may be taken ofij and then if sufilcicnt 

 cream is collected, churned. 



When the butter is formed, the butter-milk is 

 drained oft" — cold water is put into the churn — 

 worked well with the dasher — and renewed until 

 it comes out clean. By this process the hand is 

 but little used. 



N. B. The surest way of discovering the first 

 bubble is, when the cream is well risen, to open 

 the cream or pass a pin tlirough it in the middle 

 of the pan, and the first bubble that appears there, 

 will indicate the proper time to remove it ii-om the 

 fire. 



Your obedient servant, 



CHARLES VAUGHA^r. 



ON AS IMPORTANT RESULT OF AX EXPERI- 

 MENT IN THE CULTURE OF POTATOES. 



By the Rev. James Farquharson, of A.lford. 



From the Prize Essa3's and Transactions of thii Higlilaud .Soci- 

 ety of Scotland. 



I am not aware of any experiment having been 

 made, smiilar to the one I am now about to de- 

 scribe; and as the result of that has turned out to 

 be important, in a practical view, if may not be 

 unworthy of the notice of the Highland Society. 



I had not the merit of devising it, for it was first 

 made by my serv^ant. In the year 1824, at the 

 time of hoeing the potato crop, I observed thirty 

 or ibrty plants, in part of one drill, so greatly su- 

 perior to any other in the field, that I became de- 

 sirous of knowing the cause, and on inquiry of my 

 servant, he gave me the following account. At 

 the time of planting, the potatoes cut for plants 

 had become exhausted, before the prepared 

 ground was all planted, and he had carried some 

 whole potatoes to be cut by the planters in the 

 field. Observing among these several potatoes ot 

 large size, he had, with his own hands, planted 

 thirty or forty of these uncut and together in one 

 drill, which he had marked, to see whether the 

 produce would be large potatoes. They received 

 no additional manure, and were planted, in all re- 

 spects under equal circumstances, and at equal 

 distances with the other plants in the field. 



I observed that these plants maintained a great 

 superioiity in all stages of their growth, and ob- 

 viously attained a state of full ripeness belbre any 

 others. At the time of digging them, in autumn, 

 their produce was carefully attended to, and found 

 to be in a remarkable degree superior in the weight 

 of crop and largeness and uniformity of the pota- 

 toes. 



In the succeeding season I ordered the experiment 

 to be renewed, on as large a scaje as nty field ad- 



mitted of, and varied, by planting the greater part 

 of the field with cuts of large sized potatoes, and 

 some drills with uncut large ones, and others with 

 small ones uncut and cut. 



I regret that I did not keep any note of the 

 weight of the crops raised after the several sizes, 

 the experiment being intended at the time solely 

 for ra}' own information; but the increase in weight 

 after the large potatoes, both cut and uncut, was 

 exceeding ^reat. I have since adopted the prac- 

 tice of 2ilanting cuts of large sized potatoes only; 

 and can noAv state it <is a proposition universally 

 true, that the j^roduce of large tubers is much 

 more abundant, more unilbrni in size, and consider- 

 ably earlier than that of small tubers, under equal 

 circumstances of soil and planting. 



It will be objected to the system of planting 

 large potatoes, that if we gain a greater weight of 

 ]jroduce, we have previously put a greater weight 

 of plants into the ground. But the additional 

 weight of the plants oears only a small proportion 

 to the additional produce; had it been otherwise, I 

 should not have deemed the experiment worth re- 

 porting. The fact is, that the additional produce, 

 when large tubers arc exclusively chosen for plant- 

 ing, may amount to two or three times the whole 

 weight of the plants. 



I have been enabled to turn the result of t^ie 

 above experiment to account, in extending to cul- 

 ture in the field, an early variety of the potato, 

 which I got in 1826. 



In that year I purchased for trial small quanti- 

 ties of several varieties of potatoes, recommended 

 each for some particular quality, and announced 

 tor sale by a seedsman. I did not find any of these 

 worthy of being continued in cultivation, except- 

 ing an early one, with v/hicli I got no name. It 

 ripens about a month before the white kidney, has 

 a very good flavor for the table, and preserves its 

 good qualities after being pitted through the winter, 

 a thing not common in early varieties. Its imper- 

 iections, when I first got it, were, that the tubers 

 were small, and weight of crop inferior, which, al- 

 though not making it objectionable as an early gar- 

 den potato for the table, unfitted it for field culture 

 tor the cattle. 



As in this country (upper district of Aberdeen- 

 shire) our common field varieties of the potato are 

 liable to have their tops smitten by incidental hoar- 

 frosts in the months of August and September, 

 before the}' are fully ripened, and thus to be much 

 deteriorated in qualit}-, and often rendered deficient 

 in quantity, it occurred to me, that it might be an 

 object worth attaining, to increase the size and 

 produce of this early potato, by the means indi- 

 cated by the above experiments; when, if this 

 could be done, we should have a good keeping po- 

 tato adapted for field culture, and ripening early 

 enoufjh to escape the frost. 



By" a careful selection of only the largest tubers 

 for plants, for a succession of years, this object has 

 now been satisfactorily accomplished; and for the 

 last two years the half of my field potatoes, raised 

 for the cattle and jjoultry, has been of this variety, 

 and has given a weight of produce, ripening very 

 early, scarcelj', if at all, inferior to that of any 

 other variety formerly in cultivation in this neigh- 

 borhood. 



yflford, September 26th, 1833. 



