266 The Profitable Culture of Vegetables. 



again, few market growers can afford to neglect their culture 

 certainly not those who cater for a direct trade. 



Soil and Situation. Abundant crops of Potatoes can be 

 grown on almost any soil which has received adequate prepar- 

 ation, but its character has a great influence on the quality of 

 the tubers, those, grown on retentive staples, such as peat 

 or bog lands or heavy clays, being generally of an inferior 

 flavour or of a soapy or waxy character, though much depends 

 upon the weather, and in a dry season such soils will often 

 produce crops which leave little to be desired. Damp, badly 

 drained, or low-lying land should be avoided, as although such 

 situations may be productive of good and sound crops when 

 the summer is hot and dry, they are always the first to be 

 attacked by fungoid disease in an average season and seldom 

 escape it when the summer is wet, besides being very liable to 

 serious damage from late spring frosts. Situations which are 

 very confined or overhung by large trees are also unsuitable, 

 as the stagnant atmosphere and the damp from dripping trees, 

 which the sun and wind never get the chance to thoroughly 

 dry, keeps the foliage very soft and, especially in a wet season, 

 makes them very susceptible to fungoid attacks. 



The ideal conditions for producing heavy crops of good 

 sound Potatoes are an open, sunny, slightly elevated situation 

 and a deep, well-drained, medium soil, neither a decided clay 

 nor sand ; at the same time the fact cannot be overlooked that 

 excellent crops are often taken off well-worked clays, poor 

 sandy soils, thin chalky soils, and newly-reclaimed bog lands. 

 In fact, a friable clay soil will so frequently produce crops 

 good both in quantity and quality that the only serious objec- 

 tion to its more extensive use for Potato culture is that its 

 condition depends too much upon the state of the weather, as 

 it often becomes practically unworkable in wet periods, both 

 at planting and harvesting times, whilst if it is poached about 

 when wet it sets so hard when dry as to be impossible of proper 

 summer cultivation and is very difficult to work when the time 

 has arrived for the. crop to be lifted. 



Preparation of the Soil. The site selected should be open 

 and fully exposed to the sun and, as an aid in the prevention 

 of disease as well as contributing to a better crop, it should be 



