V. POTATOE. 



down into that earth. The sets may be put in at about a 

 foot apart, and then you may sow all over the bed 

 radishes, onions and lettuces. These will come up imme- 

 diately, and the management of the bed is this. In the 

 first place, you put hoops across it, leaving about eighteen 

 inches between every two hoops j then tie straight and 

 smooth sticks, long-ways of the bed upon the hoops j 

 then have mats good and sound, to lay over the hoops j 

 and the bed ought to be of the width that a mat will 

 completely cover. At all times, when the radishes will 

 bear the open air, that is to say, when there is no frost, 

 the mats ought to be off in the day-time j and, if it be 

 extraordinarily warm for the season, and you are sure 

 that no frost will come in the night, they may be off in 

 the night ; for, if the plants be drawn up, the radishes, 

 lettuces and onions will come to nothing, and the pota- 

 toes will be spindling and will not produce. By the 

 time that the radishes have been all drawn and used, the 

 potatoes will have come up, and will have attained the 

 height of six or seven inches : the young onions will 

 have been used also, and the lettuce plants taken away 

 and planted out in the open ground ; so that the potatoes 

 only will remain, and these will be fit for use in May, 

 and, perhaps, early in May. Under the head of radishes, 

 I shall have to speak of a mode of getting potatoes still 

 earlier than this, though, perhaps, this is as early as any 

 one need wish for. The bed need not be long. From 

 twelve to twenty feet is, perhaps, enough, for any 

 family. After the potatoes are used, the earth should 

 be drawn off the bed, the dung taken out, and applied 

 to the manuring of the garden, the earth put back again 

 to the place whence it was dug out, and the ground 



