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LXIV. ON THE CULTURE OF THE POTATO. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, July ~\st, 1828.] 



WHATEVER may have been the amount of the advantages or injury 

 which the British Empire has sustained by the very widely-extended 

 culture of the potato, it is obvious that under present existing circum- 

 stances it must continue to be very extensively cultivated ; for though it 

 is a calamity to have a numerous population who are compelled by poverty 

 to live chiefly upon potatoes, it would certainly be a much greater calamity 

 to have the same population without their having potatoes to eat. 



Under this view of the subject, I have been led to endeavour to ascer- 

 tain, by a course of experiments, the mode of culture by which the largest 

 and most regular produce of potatoes, and of the best quality, may be 

 obtained from the least extent and value of ground ; and having succeeded 

 best by deviating rather widely from the ordinary rules of culture, I send 

 the following account of the results of my experiments. These were 

 made upon different varieties of potatoes ; but as the results were in all 

 cases nearly the same, I think that I shall most readily cause the practice 

 I recommend to be understood by describing minutely the treatment of a 

 single variety only, which I received from the Horticultural Society, under 

 the name of Lankman's potato. 



The soil in which I proposed to plant being very shallow, and lying 

 upon a rock, I collected it with a plough into high ridges of four feet 

 wide, to give it an artificial depth. A deep furrow was then made along 

 the centre and highest part of each ridge ; and in the bottom of this, 

 whole potatoes, the lightest of which did not weigh less than four ounces, 

 were deposited, at only six inches' distance from the centre of one to the 

 centre of another. Manure, in the ordinary quantity, was then introduced, 

 and mould was added, sufficient to cover the potatoes rather more deeply 

 than is generally done. 



The stems of potatoes, as of other plants,- rise perpendicularly under 

 the influence of their unerring guide, gravitation, so long as they continue 

 to be concealed beneath the soil ; but as soon as they rise above it, they 

 are, to a considerable extent, under the control of another agent, light. 

 Each inclines in whatever direction it receives the greatest quantity of 

 that fluid, and consequently each avoids, and appears to shun, the slmde 

 of every contiguous plant. The old tubers being large and under the 

 mode of culture recommended rather deeply buried in the ground, the 

 young plants in the early part of the summer never suffer from want of 

 moisture ; and being abundantly nourished, they soon extend themselves 



