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LXVII. AN ACCOUNT OF AN ECONOMICAL METHOD OF OBTAINING 

 VERY EARLY CROPS OF NEW POTATOES. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, May 4th, 1830.] 



I COMMUNICATE the following account of a method of raising very early 

 crops of potatoes, which I have practised during the last two years, and 

 which will, I believe, be found to point out the means of obtaining that 

 vegetable at much less expense than by any other now practised, and in 

 a state of great perfection. 



It is well known to every gardener, that potatoes which have been 

 buried sufficiently deep in the soil to render them secure from injury by 

 frost, usually vegetate very strongly in the succeeding spring ; and I was 

 thence led to hope that by planting in September large tubers which had 

 ripened early in the preceding summer, and had by a period of rest 

 become excitable, I should be able to cause roots and stems to be emitted 

 to some extent in the autumn ; and that these, by being well defended 

 from frost through winter, might operate so as to afford me a very early 

 produce. The experiment was not successful. The tubers vegetated 

 almost immediately, and the stems just reached the surface of the ground, 

 when they were destroyed by frost ; and although the ground was imme- 

 diately so well covered as securely to exclude frost from it, not a single 

 plant appeared in the following spring. I therefore concluded that the 

 experiment had totally failed, and that the tubers planted, after once 

 vegetating, had perished. 



Late in the following summer, however, I observed that a very large 

 number of rather strong potatoe plants rose through the soil, precisely 

 where I had deposited the large tubers in the preceding autumn : and 

 the appearance of these perfectly satisfied me that I had erred in sup- 

 posing those to have perished. The experiment was therefore repeated 

 in the autumn of 1828 ; and the result in the succeeding spring was the 

 same, not a single plant appearing above the soil ; but upon examination 

 I found beneath it, in June, a very abundant crop of excellent young 

 potatoes, which attained maturity at least a month earlier than those 

 raised at the same time, in the same soil and situation, in the usual way. 

 It now became obvious, that a similar crop of young potatoes had been 

 produced in the preceding year ; and that these, having remained at rest 

 till late in the summer, had become excitable, and had produced the 

 numerous plants above-mentioned. The tubers planted were of the 



