THE POTATO. 279 



require sticks to siipport them about three feet in 

 length, and the tall or later varieties about six feet. 

 The Bishop or early Dwarf is, however, only one 

 foot high. Different modes of sowing pease in the 

 garden are practised, as in drills, rows, and circles, 

 and these double and single ; but care must be taken 

 to have the rows or drills proportioned in distance to 

 the height the pease are expected to grow ; or from 

 four to seven or eight feet apart. In the widest 

 spaces other vegetables may be planted, such as 

 roots that will come to maturity after the pease are 

 ripe and the brush is removed. 



Pease may be started in frames or hotbeds if placed 

 in pots, and will be much earlier than if grown in the 

 open air. A quart of pease will plant from one hun- 

 dred and fifty to two hundred feet in the row ; the 

 early dwarfs three to an inch, the middle sorts three 

 to two inches, and the large sorts an inch and a half 

 apart. The Pea will produce better for being fre- 

 quently hoed, and the earth drawn up to the plants ; 

 and care must be taken to have them bushed early, 

 that they may have proper supports. 



Pease should always be cooked immediately after 

 being gathered, or much of their sweetness is lost. 

 " Taste and try" is the only rule in boiling them, as 

 a little difference in age and hardness will make 

 much diflerence in the quickness and ease 6f cook- 

 ing. Some put in a sprig or two of spearmint with 

 the pease in boiling, as imparting a finer flavour, and 

 a little salt in the water should never be omitted. 

 For field-culture of pease, reference may be had to 

 the agricultural journals of the day, in which the 

 diflTerent processes, and the value of the crop, may 

 be found fully described. 



There are two plants extensively cultivated known 

 by this name ; one the common Potato, Solanum tu- 

 berosum, and the other the Sweet Potato, Convolvulus 



