KITCHEN-GARDEN PLANTS. ClIAP. 



care that no other sort grow near it j for potatoes mix 

 the breed more readily than any thing else, though, in 

 this case, there be no bloom. It is very difficult, for 

 this reason, to get this sort true and unmixed. If these 

 potatoes be planted early in March, or late in February, 

 it should be in warm and dry ground j and you must 

 take care to cover the ground where they are planted 

 with litter or straw, if you perceive that frosts are 

 approaching, for if the root be once frosted, it immedi- 

 ately becomes water. You may dig up some of these 

 potatoes in June as big as walnuts or bigger. They are 

 not ripe in June ; but they may be ripe by the latter end 

 of July ; they increase in size as you go on, and the 

 quantity need not be large, for, by the time these are ex- 

 hausted, the ladies' fingers come in for use. A small 

 quantity will be enough for seed for the next year. You 

 should pick out five or six of the truest plants to stand 

 for seed j when the haulm dies, take up the roots 3 put 

 them by carefully and preserve them till Spring. If you 

 wish to have potatoes still earlier than this, you must 

 resort to artificial heat. One way of doing this is as 

 follows : dig out the earth in the border opposite the 

 South side of a wall, but at four or five feet from it 

 in order to give room for the operations to be performed. 

 Take the earth out to the depth of two feet, and make 

 a hot-bed there of good, and rather long, dung, causing 

 the bed to rise about a foot above the level of the 

 ground. Put part of the earth upon this bed, and lay 

 the rest as a bank on each side of it. Give the bed a little 

 time to heat and to sink, and have the earth upon the 

 bed about eight or nine inches deep. Plant the sets of 

 potatoes in the earth upon this bed, and about six inches 



