172 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



earth from barnyards or mould from swamps, and 

 putting this for a top-dressing on the plants. This 

 is done with a horse and cart, the horse travelling 

 between the rows. 



There is an opinion veiy prevalent among farm- 

 ers (an erroneous one, we think), that where tubers 

 or sets of different varieties are planted indiscrimi- 

 nately, or even near each other in the same field, 

 the product will be of a mixed character, a single 

 root combining the colours and qualities of the va- 

 rieties planted ; or, in other words, the new root will 

 be a genuine hybrid. Such an effect is physiologi- 

 cally impossible. The roots of a plant are ncM, the 

 seeds ; and it is these latter alone that can feel the 

 influence of the fecundating pollen distributed by 

 the flowers. Apple-blossoms, impregnated as they 

 usually are by the pollen from other blossoms, pro- 

 duce fruit proper to the tree ; yet the seed, if sown, 

 will rarely produce trees resembling the parent ; and 

 no man would suppose that, because these apple- 

 seed produced plants dissimilar to the parent tree, a 

 sprout that should spring up from a root, as is some- 

 times the case, should be so likewise. The fact is, 

 the propagation of the potato by the' tubers and by 

 the seed is an operation as distinct as the growth 

 of the mulberry from cuttings and from seed. The 

 root or the cutting will invariably produce the same 

 variety, but the seed will not with certainty, unless 

 the possibility of fecundation from other varieties is 

 carefully guarded against. 



There is also another point on which agriculturists 

 are somewhat at variance ; and that is, the propriety 

 of cutting the stem of the potato before the root ar- 

 rives at maturity. Gen. Barnum maintains " that 

 an early frost, which nips the tops and destroys the 

 vine, does not prevent the growth of the potato, and 

 that such a notion ought to be exploded. On the 

 contrary, if at this time it has not attained its full 

 growth and weight, it grows more rapidly, the uour- 



