AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 303 



known that when set out in spring, the trees grow slowly and 

 feebly while they are waiting for their second sap. 



PECULIAR MODE OF CULTIVATING POTATOES. 



By Mr. Orbelin. 



I have been asked about this mode, which is practised by the 

 gardener of Mr. Drouin de Saint Maur, whose remarkably suc- 

 cessful products I have often presented for exhibition. 



The potato he cultivates goes by the name of yam. His prac- 

 tice differs much from the general method. He prepares the 

 ground well, and then makes little furrows in it about ten centi- 

 metres (four inches,) deep, just as he would for sowing peas. He 

 then from a potato scoops out an eye, the germ having a little of 

 the potato about it — these he sets in the furrows by hand. When 

 the plant comes up and shows several stalks, he takes all ofl' but 

 the strongest. 



Drainage has been practised for a long time; the old-fashioned 

 large ditches displaced by the system of tubes, heralded so much 

 in England and France by all the really intelligent agronomes, 

 for many years past. 



Their sandy soils are rendered fertile by the yellow flower Lupin, 

 (Lupinus luteus,) which not only ameliorates the soil surprisingly, 

 but feeds their sheep. 



The great men, the savans, all the first men of Germany, are 

 now, not only amateurs but practicians of gardening and farming. 

 The count, Albert Schlippeubach, a chamberlain of the King of 

 Prussia, showed some of his works, which I think are some of 

 the finest I ever saw. At Counts Arnem and Eapevich, I saw all 

 the new flowers from the four-quarters of the globe. 



The Count Pliesse, showed me his old oaks, contemporaries of 

 Varus and Arminius, eleven and thirteen metres in circumference, 

 more than forty feet. (Arminius and Varus flourished 1860 years 

 ago. 



Every instructed man in Germany loves flowers. Children 

 learn botany at their schools. They have herbariums. They 

 cultivate flowers everywhere. All the windows of cities and 

 villages are like so many hot-houses full of beautiful flowers. 

 The men of high station all grow pine apples &c. 



