276 Culture of the Sweet Potato. 



gratify the eye with their luxuriant foliage, and beautiful 

 flowers. We remain, Sir, yours, &c. 



G. Thorburn and Son. 

 New YorJc, April 1 6. 1 828. 



The sweet potato is cultivated in several gardens in the 

 neighbourhood of Paris with perfect success, and the tubers 

 sold in the market, and in the fruit-shops. The best crops we 

 saw were in Admiral TchitchigofF's garden at Sceaux. The 

 tubers ai'e planted in February, or earlier or later at pleasure, 

 in the pine stove, or in a small hotbed ; and the shoots they 

 produce are taken off, and planted a foot apart every way, on 

 dung beds, covered with 15 in. of earth, and protected by 

 hoops and mats in the manner of ridged cucumbers. This 

 may be done any time from April to June, and the shoots 

 are not dibbled in, but laid down in drills about 3 in. deep, 

 keeping 2 in. of the point of the shoot above the earth. In 

 about two months after transplanting, some of the tubers will 

 be fit to take off for use, and the plants will continue pro- 

 ducing till they are destroyed by frost. To preserve the tubers 

 through the winter, the greatest care is required. In the king's 

 forcing-gardens at Versailles, they are kept in a growing state 

 all the winter in the pine stoves. With the exception of this 

 difficulty of preserving the tubers through the winter, the 

 sweet potato is just as easily cultivated as the mealy potato. 

 Though the shoots are naturally ascending and twining like 

 those of 2amus communis, the plants are not sticked, and 

 therefore the shoots cover the ground, and form over it a 

 thick matting of dark green smooth foliage. In the early part 

 of the season, the tubers are taken off as they attain the size 

 of early kidney potatoes ; later the whole crop is dug up. If 

 the sweet potato were once fairly introduced into first-rate 

 gardens, we have no doubt it would form an article of regular 

 culture there. 



Since writing the above, we observe, in the last edition of 

 the Bo7i Jardinier, that the sweet potato is cultivated in the 

 south of France, where the shoots and leaves are reckoned 

 excellent forage for cows and horses, and that some people 

 eat them as spinach. Directions are given for preserving 

 the tubers through the winter in layers in a box of very dry 

 sand, no one tuber touching another ; the box closed and 

 surrounded by a good thickness of straw, and the whole put 

 in another box, and placed under a heap of straw, so as to 

 prevent the tubers from undergoing any change of tem- 

 perature. — Cojid. 



