A METHOD OF OBTAINING EARLY CROPS OF NEW POTATOES. 311 



largest size which I could obtain of the variety, the ash-leaved kidney 

 potatoe. 



Similar experiments were made in the last autumn ; but the tempera- 

 ture of the ground was so low, owing to the excessive coldness of the 

 preceding summer, that not a single tuber vegetated. A part were 

 therefore taken up, and made to vegetate by means of artificial heat, till 

 they had emitted stems about three inches long, when they were taken 

 from the soil, and the further progress of vegetation arrested. In the 

 middle of January these were put into a pot with some barren sandy soil, 

 and placed in the pine-stove, and supplied moderately with water till the 

 middle of March. At that period I discovered that small new potatoes 

 had been abundantly generated, and water was not subsequently given 

 till the middle of April ; when I found the pot to contain very well-grown 

 young potatoes, which were without any other defect than that of not being, 

 to my taste, sufficiently mature. The requisite degree of artificial heat 

 to insure success in experiments similar to the preceding may, of course, 

 be obtained from a variety of different sources, which I need not point 

 out ; and not improbably, I think, by means of a temperate hot-bed, the 

 surface of the mould of which might be applied to other purposes ; but I 

 should prefer clean and barren sand for the tubers to be placed in, as 

 those could not receive early benefit from a rich soil, and their produce 

 might be injured in quality. 



The largest crops of early potatoes will usually be obtained from tubers 

 which have ripened late, and somewhat imperfectly, in the preceding 

 year ; but it is quite essential to the success of the preceding experiment, 

 that the tubers which are planted in autumn should have ripened early in 

 the foregoing summer ; for otherwise they will not be found sufficiently 

 excitable in autumn. It is also necessary that they should be of large 

 size, otherwise the young potatoes which they afford will be small ; and 

 it will be advantageous, if the tubers to be planted have been detached 

 from their parent plants upon their having just attained their full growth. 



I believe, but I am not prepared to speak upon the evidence of experi- 

 ment, that the best and the most economical mode of treating the old 

 tubers, after their progress of vegetation has been arrested by cold, will 

 be to put them into such heaps as are usually seen in the gardens of 

 cottagers, and to cover them with mould ; as a very large quantity would 

 occupy only a small space, and their produce would there probably 

 acquire a more early maturity, and might be collected at any time with 

 little trouble. 



A writer in Mr. Loudon's Gardener's Magazine has recommended the 



