272 THE COMPLETE FARMER 



The common mode of planting and cultivating the potato 

 is known to every cottager and farming man ; but that phi- 

 losophic method which has recently been productive of enor- 

 mous returns, may, perhaps, be referred chiefly, if not entire- 

 ly, to the scientific president of the Horticultural society. 

 This method it is my object to describe, through the medium 

 of your pages ; but before I enter upon the detail of Mr. 

 Knight's directions, I think it a duty to request the reader's 

 attention to a few important results, the particulars of which 

 have been stated to me in letters lately received from that 

 gentleman. As facts, and very recent ones, they are pecu- 

 liarly interesting, not only as they decisively show what 

 may be, and has been effected during the late season, but 

 also because they prove, to a demonstration, that science 

 and "hypothesis may go hand in hand with practice ; and 

 that, when the latter is founded upon the former, it loses alto- 

 gether its empirical character, and becomes established upon 

 the most unassailable basis. 



Mr. Knight has observed, that he planted his potatoes 

 upon a soil naturally 'poor and very shallow, upon a rock 

 full of fissures, giving no more manure than is usually given 

 to a crop of tur7iips ; the manure was mixed up with the 

 soil, and not thrown into the drills at the time of planting. 

 The plants suffered from drought during a part of the year ; 

 nevertheless, he had very good crops from many varieties. 

 These varieties he had himself originated from seed, and they 

 possess the important quality of scarcely producing any blos- 

 soms ; and therefore the vital powers of the plant are en- 

 tirely employed in the production and support of those tube- 

 rous processes, the potatoes, which are the sole object of the 

 cultivator. The produce of two of the sorts is particularly 

 stated to me, and is as follows : of the one, twenty-three 

 tons two hundred weight seventy-six pounds ; and the 

 other, twenty tons two hundred weight one hundred and 

 one pounds, per acre. Of four other varieties he observes, 

 ' the produce exceeded twenty tons each per acre, all of good 

 quality.' If the reader will reduce these weights to pounds, 

 he will find them (reckoning the yield at twenty tons only 

 per acre) to amount to five hundred and sixty bushels, each 

 of eighty pounds weight, 



I In the winter of 1831, I received a packet from Mr. 

 Knight, inclosing several specimen potatoes raised by him. 

 For the convenience of carriage, these were under the me- 

 ^dium size, weighing about four ounces each; they were, 



