'" Published by John B. Russell, at JVo. 52 JVorth Market Street, (at the Agncultural ffarehouse). — Thomas G. Fessenden, Editor. 



rOL. VIII. 



NEW ENCJiiAND FARMER. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER G, 1829. 



No. 16. 



AGRICULTURE. 



FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



ON POTATOES. 



R Fessendf.n — I have often eaten the Foxite 

 ;o in New York, and nothingof the kind could 

 icr. I have planted them two or three years 

 the best seed which could be procured in that 

 The quality of the produce was very good ; 

 ot equal to what I had found in New York ; 

 iven with liberal manuring it was so small 

 ;e and quantity, both with me and others, for 

 n I procured the seed, that we gave up the 

 111 ration of them, 

 le public spirit of Messrs Buel, Thatcher, 

 Edwards, in the distribution of their seeds is 



I to their honor; and I hope that those who 

 themselves of their liberality, will not be dis- 

 inted. Much, I think, depends on the season 

 jU as the kind of seed. 



tatoes this year, in this vicinity, are uncora- 

 y fine and productive ; and if Mr Buel 

 d now do us the honor of a visit, and there 



man we should more heartily welcome, we 

 1, perhaps, show him some potatoes worth 

 g. Some kinds have greatly improved. The 

 lata, or Long Red, which formerly was not 

 ting' until spring, with me, both the last and 

 iresent season, has become a fine and mealy 

 .0 as soon as gathered. Though 1 have this 

 cultivated several varieties from seed of what 

 leemed the best qualities procurable at Hal- 



II and Penobscot river, in Maine, at the White 

 , in New Hampshire, at Brattleboro', Ver- 

 ', in Pennsylvania, and New York, and from 

 direct from Liverpool, from Mr Goukgas, 

 ton, from Connecticut, called the Rogers po- 

 or Irish Whites, sold by Mr Russell, at the 

 cultural Warehouse in Boston, and of what 

 lied in Danvers the Biscuit potato, which is a 

 d blue potato, and very productive, and of 

 ;some call the China, others the Watson po- 

 probably a merely local name, which is a 



d, purple potato, with yellow stripes, and like- 

 a' long white kidney potato, a great bearer, 

 ,h I understand to be an original potato, 

 d from the balls on the late Col. Pickering's 

 in Wenham, and have raised this year more 

 1.500 bushels of various kinds, yet I am dis- 

 d to place the La Plata for eating as No. 3, 

 for yielding as No. 1, though it seems to be 

 ji-od'uclive than when first brought here, 

 he quality of a potato depends much on the 

 in". A potato roasted, and a potato boiled, 

 , ery diftercnt vegetables. At a friend's house, 

 re i have been accustomed to eat the best im- 

 id English potatoes, it has always seemed to 

 t^hat nothing of the kind could be superior, 

 long since, at the same table, I ate some of 

 aest^of my own raising ; he in-onounced them 

 d to the English. I did not consider them as 

 1, yet but little inferior. They were certainly 

 -itly improved under his mode of cooking. 1 

 some of the same potatoes to another friend 

 season, who considered them only as a medi- 

 quality ; and to another, who informed me 

 were as fine as he had ever had. This dif- 



ference of judgment probably arose from a differ- 

 ence in the preparation. 



The friend first alluded to informed me, that 

 his potatoes are first peeled, then placed in cold 

 water for two or three hours, then put into boiling 

 water ; and after having boiled sufficiently, the 

 water is turned from them, and they are hung, iin 

 covered, over the fire until the steam has complete- 

 ly eva()orated. I have seen the .same directions 

 formerly given in the New England Fanner. In 

 this case, this method seemed perfectly successful. 

 Yet after one or more trials, without being able to 

 discover the cause of failure, in my own family, 

 we have not been equally fortunate. I am fully 

 convinced that potatoes should never bei)ennitted 

 to .soak injhe water, or to imbibe the steam one 

 minute after they are thoroughly boiled. 



Oct. 24, 1829. H. C. 



FOR THE NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



ON THE CULTURE OF POTATOES. 



Tie cultivation of potatoes, so as to produce 

 an akmdant crop, and of good quality, and at the 

 same time to continue the kind without deteriora- 

 tion, ii still an occult or unsettled science. There 

 is no cultivation in which the experiments and 

 their lesults have been more various. New land, 

 and esiecially that which has been cleared by 

 burning, and on which the ashes remain, is always 

 favoralile to the abundance and goodness of the 

 crop. Moist, but not wet land, and a moist and 

 ^cold season, are in general considered favorable ; 

 but any certain method in our old ground of in- 

 6U..V!.-.^ an abundant crop, and of good quahty, re- 

 mains to be discovered. At least the contradic- 

 tory 01 various directions which are given on this 

 subject by distinguished cultivators, attested too 

 by experiments, would naturally lead to this infe- 

 rence. 



Mr J. Laurel gave, some years since, an ac- 

 count of lis successful experiments in raising po- 

 tatoes froii, the eyes merely, and in obtaining from 

 them a fa; superior yield, to that from whole po- 

 tatoes. H; speaks thus confidently : — " I am fully 

 convince* that small potatoes are as good for seed 

 as large ■ that three in a hill are better than a 

 larger qiantity ; that cut potatoes are better than 

 whole ; md that the eyes are best of all. In this 

 method ' he says, "there will be an immense sav- 

 ing of lineteen-twentieths of seed."* The next 

 year he repeated his experiments with equal suc- 

 cess ; aid says, for it is a curious example of the 

 extravagance into which sanguine men, with per- 

 fectly bnest intentions, may be betrayed," if any 

 farmer.s so blinded by prejudice, as to continue 

 plantiig from ten to fifteen bushels u[)on an acre, 

 whicl will weigh from eight to twelve hundred 

 pounls of seed, and is content to harvest from sixty 

 to 07thundredbushclsasiheproduce,mslead of plant- 

 iig sixty pounds of eyes, that will measure about 

 ilfe pecks of seed, from which he will harvest tivo 

 hudred bushels and upwards, on such, experiment 

 ail advice are thrown away." Then comes a 

 M Benjamin Adams, immediately on the heels 

 o" Mr Barrel, to inform the public that the result 



'Massachusetts Agricultural Publications for 1803. 



of his experiments was the reverse of Mr B.'s ; — 

 and Dr Anderson, in his communications to the 

 British Board of Agriculture, says, "it is scarcely 

 possible to devise a direction that would with 

 greater certainty insure a deficient crop, excepting 

 that of planting sprouts without any bulbs at all. 



The late Col. Pickering recommended by ins 

 advice and experiments, the planting the sprouts 

 merely.* " Seeing then," he says, " that the pro- 

 duce of sprouts is in flavor equal, and, when hav- 

 ing more room, sujvrior in size, and fairer in form 

 than the produce of the potatoes themselves, what 

 room is there to doubt of the sprouts being upon 

 the whole, at least equal for seed to potatoes or 

 their cuttings, provided so many sprouts be plant- 

 ed as will produce an equal number of shoots or 

 steins .' Mr King, indeed, says, he is confident 

 [and it will be recollected he says this after about 

 twenty years exi^erience] that sprouts will produce 

 as good, if not belter crops, than potato sets, and 

 more seldom fail of growing." " The result," 

 Col. P. adds, " has proved so satisfactory that I 

 shall certainly, in future years, plant all the good 

 sprouts my potatoes shall afford." Longer experi- 

 ence doubtless altered his opinions. In the answers 

 given to the printed inquiries of the Massachusetts 

 Society, in 1806, from various intelligent sources, 

 we are told " that at Brookline they recommend 

 middling ])otatoes. At Concord and the upper 

 part of Middlesex, they use the best potatoes for 

 seed. At Marlborough the seed is taken promis- 

 cuously from the cellar. At Newbury it is stated 

 they use the refuse only." Mr QuiNcr by an ex- 

 periment conducted with exactness in 1817, shows 

 a gain of at leaf^ ^-.np thh'd by planting whole po- 

 tatoes rather than cuttings.f ~- 

 Froin my own experiments, in which I lay no 

 claims to the exactness of the above named gen- 

 tlemen, I am still at a loss to determine which 

 is best, whether whole potatoes, or cuttings of po- 

 tatoes of a good size ; though I am convinced the 

 largest seed generally produces the largest pota- 

 toes ; yet the cost of the seed, where whole pota- 

 toes are used for planting, is matter of no small 

 consideration. 



The Practical Farmer, author cf a " Treatise 

 on Agriculture," one of the best books ever pub- 

 lished on the subject, and from the pen of a dis- 

 tinguished ex-ambassador to France, Mr Arm- 

 strong, and his able reviewer Mr Lowell, (high- 

 er authority canrot he quoted among us,) speak in 

 the most decided language " in favor of the pi-ac- 

 tice of planting large, well grown potatoes for 

 seed in preference to small ones, or cuttings, or 

 sprouts."! E. H. Derby, Esq. an experienced and 

 intelligent cultivator, raised his very early pota- 

 toes from sprouts, and, if we mistake not, obtain- 

 ed from the same bulb, four crops in the same sea- 

 son, lie remarks, " I could not perceive any dif. 

 fercnce in the yielding of the plants, between those 

 which were separated, and the ones which adhered 

 to the potato."§ Mr Thomas, of Niagara, N. Y. 

 who in a prolific season has raised " without any 

 unusual exertion," 500, and in one instance'576 

 bushels to an acre, says, " Potatoes of good size 



'Mass. Agr. Repository for 180f). 



+ Massachusetts Memoirs of Agriculture, vol. v. p. C4. 



% Ibid. vol. vi. p. 373. § Ibid. p. 394. 



