80 AGRICULTURE. 



to indicate under three different heads : 1st, the 

 preparation of the soil ; 2d. the choice of plants and 

 mode of planting ; and, lastly, the treatment of the 

 growing crop. 



1st. Of the preparation of the soil. 



Give your field intended for potatoes a goo*d fall 

 ploughing, and in ridges if the soil be clay. Leave 

 it rough and open to the influences of the frost du- 

 ring the winter, and as early in the spring as you 

 discover in it the marks of vegetation, harrow and 

 roll it. When the weeds show themselves a second 

 time, carry out your manure, cover the fields with 

 it, and plough it under. If the quantity of manure 

 be insufficient to cover the whole surface, apply it to 

 the furrows only ; and if, as may happen, it be even 

 insufficient for this purpose, then furrow both ways, 

 manure the angles of intersection, and set your po- 

 tatoes in them. 



2d. Of the choice of plants and mode of plant- 

 ing. 



Some economists begin by paring the potato, 

 and planting only the skins; others, less saving, 

 cut the potatoes into slices, leaving a single eye to 

 each slice ; and a third class, almost as provident 

 as the other two, are careful to pick out the dwarfs, 

 and reasonable enough to expect from them a pro- 

 geny of giants. These practices cannot be too much 

 censured or too soon abandoned, because directly 

 opposed both by reason and experience. In other 

 cases vre take great pains, and sometimes incur 

 great expense, to obtain the best seed. In the cul- 

 tivation of wheat we reject all small, premature, 

 worm-eaten, or otherwise imperfect grains ; in pre- 

 paring for a crop of Indian corn we select the best 

 ears, and even strip from these the small or ill- sha- 

 ped grains at the ends of the cob ; so also in plant- 

 ing beets, carrots, parsnips, and turnips, the largest 

 and finest are selected for seed. The reason of all 

 this is obvious. Plants, like animals, are rendered 



