POTATO CULTURE. 193 



PUBLISHER'S APPENDIX. 



BY A. I. ROOT. 



Potato Culture in General. 



Perhaps I should say to our readers that I am not a pro- 

 fessional potato-grower. In fact, the most I have done in 

 potato culture for many years has been to raise extra early 

 potatoes for the early market ; and to do this I have used 

 only the earliest varieties, and have started the potatoes in 

 a greenhouse. As we have found that, for extra early po- 

 tatoes, there is quite an advantage in using large whole 

 potatoes, we have practiced this almost entirely of late years. 

 We plant them in the greenhouse about -as close as we can 

 place the potatoes together, an d then cover them with very rich 

 sifted soil for about two inches. When the shoots get to be 

 from four to six inches high, we take them up as you take 

 up cabbage-plants ; but in this case the great mass of fibrous 

 roots hold a great quantity of soil with them. In fact, we 

 manage to take along pretty much all of the soil above the 

 potatoes, besides considerable below them. I should have 

 said, we generally start our potatoes under the greenhouse 

 benches, or in some place where there is not sun enough for 

 other crops. Of course, we have to calculate so that it would 

 be safe to move them outside before they get too long and 

 spindling. After all danger of frost is past they are put out 

 in very rich ground about the ordinary distance of planting. 

 Of course, the frost sometimes catches them ; but where the 

 ground is very soft and mellow it is not very expensive to 

 throw a light furrow of soft earth over them, and pull it 

 away again as soon as the danger is over. A better way, 

 however, is to put them in plant-beds 12 or 15 inches apart 

 each way, and have these beds covered with cotton sheeting 

 that may be rolled up on a pole, as we described in the 



