SEED POTATOES 395 



The warm soils, the sheltered situation, and the 

 freedom from spring frosts conferred by the proximity 

 of the Western sea afford the Ayrshire farmers the 

 opportunity of which they have taken so great an 

 advantage ; their crop succeeds the very early potatoes 

 coming from the Channel Islands and Penzance, and 

 is in the main later than the St. Malo imports, being 

 harvested from the first week of June on to the 

 middle or even end of July. 



The potato land is heavily manured, beginning 

 with about 1 5 tons per acre of farmyard manure 

 ploughed in in autumn, followed up by 1213 cwt - 

 per acre of a very concentrated artificial manure, 

 applied immediately before planting by means of a well- 

 devised machine peculiar to the district, which strikes 

 out a couple of drills and sows the manure in them. 

 Before planting, which takes place in February, the 

 seed is always carefully sprouted in boxes, and it 

 is generally obtained from a slightly more northern 

 district, still on the West Coast. The prevailing 

 variety was " Epicure." A few other well-known 

 earlies were grown, but Epicure greatly predominated, 

 the choice of the others being generally determined 

 by the fact that the small ones command a good price 

 for seed. In 1912, for example, with the wholesale 

 destruction that had been wrought by disease and 

 flood in the English potato area, the price of seed 

 was exceptionally high. 



After the first manuring no other fertilizer is 

 employed : nitrate of soda is only given when one 

 of the rare frosts has cut down the young shaw. 

 Though most of the farmers fatten bullocks or keep 

 dairy cows in order to make farmyard manure for 

 the potato land, the supply is necessarily insufficient, 

 and immense quantities are brought by rail from 

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