THE POTATO. 801 



for the potato. The new varieties, unlike old ones, will 

 not run to vine from heavy manuring; but will yield in 

 proportion to their food, probably in consequence of 

 their greater, and yet undiminished vigor. Fresh, dry 

 stable manure, especially in dry, light soil, should not 

 come in contact with the sets, lest the heat destroy their 

 vitality. The same applies to Peruvian guano, fish scrap, 

 hen manure, etc. Rich animal manures may render the 

 tubers rough, ill-shaped and knobby. If the common 

 German kainit is used, it should be sown broadcast, or 

 harrowed in, two months before planting time, for fear 

 the chloride of magnesium it contains may otherwise 

 injure the crop. 



The enormous prize crops reported some years ago to 

 a New York house, for instance of ten barrels, or four- 

 teen hundred and seventeen pounds from a single pound 

 of seed potatoes, nineteen pounds from a single hill of 

 two sets, prove the astonishing effects of heavy manur- 

 ing, and at the same time the possibility of the use of 

 very small sets. In some cases a single eye was subdivided 

 into ten pieces, a single pound furnished two hundred 

 and forty sets. The largest crop, per acre, upon record 

 was made about forty years ago by Mr. Knight, the cele- 

 brated horticulturist, and President of the Royal Hor- 

 ticultural Society (Eng. ), of thirty-four tons (English) 

 and nine cwt., equal to twelve hundred and eighty-four 

 bushels of sixty pounds each. 



From sixty to one hundred barrels per acre is quite a 

 satisfactory crop for the Southern truck-farmer. The 

 usual mode of planting is in the drill. When in hills, 

 they are made three by two, or three by three, feet apart, 

 and two or three sets are planted in each, so that they 

 may be cultivated both ways. The land being in proper 

 condition, furrows are made by the plow three or three 

 and a half feet apart, into which the manure, if planting 

 is on a large scale, is distributed, at the rate of forty 



