ON THE CULTIVATION OF POTATOES. 87 



modes to find a remedy for the evil. My first experiment was re- 

 ported to the Trustees of the Massachusetts Society for the Promo- 

 tion of Agriculture, as follows : — 



Salem, Dec. 1st, 1820. 

 Hon. Josiah Quincy : 



Dear Sir, — Observing the produce of a few potatoes, which I 

 transplanted last year, to be \evy good, I was induced this season to 

 try the experiment upon a somewhat larger scale. About the first 

 of April, I took some late white potatoes, after cutting them, placed 

 them in a hot bed, as close as they would lay, and covered them with 

 earth. On the 24th of April, the plants being in fine order, some of 

 them twelve inches high^ I took them up, and separating all the shoots 

 but one from the parent potatoe, I made drills about three feet apart 

 with a hoe, and filling the same with well digested manure, I trans- 

 planted as I should cabbage plants, the whole of the shoots about 

 nine inches apart, in the drills. On the third of May, there was a 

 very sharp frost, which injured the tops of the plants very consider- 

 ably ; they in a few days recovered, and grew very rapidly, scarcely 

 one of them failing. The rows were twice hoed. On the 30th of 

 June I commenced using new potatoes, the size large and very fine, 

 equal to any taken up in October ; finished digging them on the 10th 

 of August : the land measured 90 by 52 links of the chain, on which 

 stood one pear and one plum tree, and produced at the rate of 295 

 34 bushels per acre. The rows might have been much nearer, con 

 sequently the prodcce would have been greater. I could not per. 

 ceive any difference in the yielding of the plants, between those which 

 were separated, and the ones which adhered to the potatoe. Should 

 I try the experiment again, I should take all the plants from the po- 

 tatoe and replant it, as it appeared as fresh and sound as the day it 

 was first put into the ground. 



E. HERSY DERBY, 



My second experiment was reported to the same Trustees. 



Il Account of four crops of potatoes raised in one season ; 



' April 10th, 1821. Planted half a bushel of late potatoes, part 



kidney and part round ones, cut into sets in a hot bed. 

 i May 7. Transplanted first set of vines, as I should cabbages, and 



replanted the sets. 



