IRISH POTATOES. 209 



On well- cleared land, and where large areas are to be 

 planted, it will pay to use them. 



PLANTING. 



If the planting is to be done by hand, care should 

 be taken not to cut the tubers and leave them lying in 

 a pile ; even so small a heap as a bushel is liable to 

 heat and to destroy the germinating powers of some 

 pieces in twenty four hours. If the tubers are cut 

 several days beforehand, scatter them to dry ; the 

 moisture lost by evaporation is soon regained when 

 planted, and without any perceptible loss in vigor of 

 growth. Cut the tubers so as to give the eyes as much 

 "meat" as possible; if the conditions are proper, 

 only one or two eyes in each piece will start, the rest 

 remain dormant. 



If the field can be irrigated, it is laid off in beds 

 about six feet wide ; two rows about two feet apart are 

 planted on these beds. Drop the potatoes about a foot 

 in the row, cover with a plow, and if the land is loose, 

 roll. Some people advise the use of lime or land plas 

 ter on the cut tubers when they are not used imme- 

 diately, but this process is too slow where we have so 

 much fine weather. When an irrigating plan is used, 

 it is impossible to cultivate across the rows, so they 

 should be made as straight as possible, so the plow can 

 run very near the row. It is possible to raise a good 

 crop of potatoes without hoeing them at all. 



For fields that can not be irrigated, the rows may be 

 made two and a half or three feet apart. Two by two 

 feet is too close for good cultivation. Where labor is 

 hard to obtain, it will be found cheaper to raise the 

 crop in checks ; in such a case, the rows may be 

 marked out two and a half feet apart and the cross- 

 marks two feet apart. If labor is cheap, the rows may 

 be marked out three feet apart and the potatoes 



