THE POTATO. 187 



ing a woolen cloth or some other covering over them. 

 When the sprouts are about two inches long, he plants 

 them out towards the end of March, and thus procures 

 young potatoes in seven or eight weeks. In some places, 

 the plants are forced to some extent, by being protected 

 in frames covered with oiled paper. A secondary plant- 

 ing of tubers should be made before the middle of April. 

 "When the stems are a few inches above ground, the 

 earth should be drawn to them ; an operation, how- 

 ever, which, while it improves the crop, delays its ma- 

 turity for two or three weeks'. Mr. Knight recommends 

 removing the flowers as they appear, and states that by 

 this means the produce is increased by a tori per acre. 

 The fine early varieties, however, scarcely produce any 

 flowers. 



An important fact in the cultivation of the potato 

 was observed about the year 1-806, by the late Mr. Thomas 

 Dickson, of Edinburgh, viz., that the most healthy and 

 productive plants were to be obtained by employing as 

 seed-stock unripe tubers, or even by planting only the 

 wet or least-ripened ends of long-shaped potatoes ; and 

 he proposed this as a preventive of the well-known dis,- 

 ease called the Curl. This view was confirmed by the 

 late Mr. Knight. An intelligent writer in the Gar- 

 deners Magazine suggests a method by which sprout- 

 ing of the eyes is accelerated. He takes up the seed 

 potatoes a considerable time before they are ripe, and 

 exposes them for some weeks to the influence of a scorch- 

 ing sun. The resulting crop is at least a fortnight earlier ; 

 but it is not said how this practice aff'ects the curl.* 



* It is not thousUt necessary here to enter on the subject of 

 the very general potato disease of 1845 and 1846. Notwithsfeand- 



