88 ON THE cultivatio:n op potatoes. 



May 21st. Transplanted the second set of vines, and replanted 

 the sets. 



June 5th. Transplanted the third set of vines, and replanted the 

 sets, and hoed the first and second sets of plants. 



June 30th. Transplanted the fourth set of vines. 



July 1st. Commenced digging full grown potatoes from the first 

 set of vines, since which my family, (a large one) has been fully 

 supplied, and I have lately commenced digging the fourth set of 

 vines. 



The potatoes exhibited were taken from the third and fourth set 

 of vines, and there are very few small ones. 



E. HERSEY DERBY. 

 Salem, Oct., 1821. 



I could have extended the experiment much farther, and have no 

 doubt I could have raised six different crops the same season, as the 

 sets were still in fine order, when I left off the experiment. I once 

 tried raising potatoes from the sprouts left in the cellar after the po- 

 tatoes Avere removed in the spring ; they were planted in a good soil 

 in a single row, they vegetated very readily, but were very feeble 

 the first part of the season, for want of nourishment from the parent 

 set ; the season proving favorable, in the autumn, I dug a tolerable 

 crop of good sized potatoes. 



The present season I took two potatoes, weighing together 3-4 of 

 a pound, and cut them into twenty-seven pieces, each having an eye, 

 and planted them in two flower pots in my green-house, the latter 

 part of April, when they had grown to about eight inches in height, 

 I turned them out of the pots, and planted them out in my garden, 

 without the sets, in rows ; this fall I dug from them very fine, large 

 potatoes, without any small ones, weighing forty-six and a half 

 pounds. Observing in the garden the last spring, several plants of 

 potatoes that had lived in the ground through the winter, where I 

 had raised potatoes the previous year, I was induced to take them 

 up and transplant them. I was surprised to find on digging them 

 this fall, a very fine produce of remarkably large potatoes. From 

 these experiments I have satisfied myself that this is the best mode 

 of raising early potatoes. You get none (or a very few) small ones 

 this way. I have observed fully that the parent set is only wanted 



