PLANTS AND THEIR CULTURE. 79 



may, notwithstanding, deserve the preference with 

 cultivators near great cities, since, besides being the 

 first in the market, they may be made to give a 

 second crop. The other two are supposed to affect 

 different kinds of soil ; the red preferring clay, and 

 the white sand or loam. Of the former there is a 

 variety more productive than any other of either 

 species, and which is known, and, we think, de- 

 graded, by the name of the hog potato. Of this 

 variety, without any peculiar care, we have raised 

 one hundred and eight bushels on one quarter of 

 an acre. 



Two ways are employed to propagate the pota- 

 to ; 1st, by sowing the seed ; and, 2d, by planting 

 the root. By the former method we obtain new 

 varieties or revive old ones ; but, as it requires three 

 years to bring these to perfection, it follows that the 

 other method, which continues the species you 

 plant, and in the perfection in which you plant them, 

 is alone resorted to for a crop. The product is 

 small, or great, or enormous, according to the fer- 

 tility of the soil and the labour bestowed upon its 

 cultivation. We have never seen a larger product 

 from the acre than four hundred bushels ; but there 

 are records of high authority which give much 

 larger crops ; and frbm which, in justice to our sub- 

 ject, we offer the following extracts : 



" At Altingham, in England, a sandy soil gave 

 700 bushels per acre. At Kirklatham, a similar soil 

 gave 580 bushels ; and a blach rich loam, 11G6 

 bushels."* 



We need hardly remark, that such immense pro- 

 ducts were procured only by the most careful and 

 well-timed cultivation, which we shall now proceed 



* See vol. xiii., p. 114, of the British Annual Register. Some 

 persons have imagined that, by cutting the flowers of the potato, 

 the crop may be increased, and analogy forms the opinion. The 

 procreative powers of the plant are thus diverted from the ap- 

 ple and concentrated in the bulb. 



