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row and roll it. When the weeds show themselves 
a second time, carry out your manure, cover the 
fields with it and plough it under. If the quantity 
of manure be insufficient to cover the whole surface, 
apply it to the furrows only ; and if, as may hap- 
pen, it be even insufficient for this purpose, then 
furrow. both ways—manure the angles of intersec- 
tion, and set your potatoes in them. 
2d. Of the choice of plants, and mode of plant- 
ing. | 
Some economists begin by pairing the potatoe, 
and. planting only the skins; others, less saving, cut 
the potatoes into slices, leaving a single eye to each 
slice ; and a third class, almost as provident as the 
other two, are careful to pick out the dwarfs, and 
reasonable enough to expect from them a progeny 
of giants. These practices cannot be too much 
censured, or too soon abandoned, because directly op- 
posed both by reason and experience. In other cases, 
we take great pains, and sometimes incur great 
expense, to obtain the best seed. In the cultivation 
of wheat, we reject all small, premature, worm eat- 
en, or otherwise imperfect grains; in preparing for 
a crep of Indian ‘corn, we select the best ears, and 
even strip from these the small or ill shaped grains 
at the ends of the cob; so also in planting beets, 
carrots, parsnips and turnips, the largest and finest 
are selected for seed.. The reason of all this is ob- 
vious :—Plants, like animals, are rendered: most per- 
fect, by selecting the finest individuals of the spe- 
cies, from which to breed. Away then with such 
12 
