436 Culture of the Potato 



still less. I shall neither occupy my own time nor your widely 

 circulating pages by reviewing it in detail, but shall briefly notice 

 a few of its most prominent points. Your correspondent states 

 " that potatoes, when they are cut, should not be spread out to 

 dry, but laid up in a close heap for about a fortnight before 

 planting," and by such means he obtained three quarters of a 

 crop ! What description of floor the seed from " Campbelton" 

 had been spread upon, I cannot conceive. In the last week of 

 December, 1833, I cut a few sets, and laid them flat down 

 with their cut sides undermost, on purpose to try the expe- 

 riment, upon floors of the following materials ; namely, wood, 

 Caithness pavement, brick, and black earth. I also, by means 

 of a string from the roof of a summer-house, suspended a 

 few, like Mahomet's coffin, and I could discover no difference, 

 except that those upon the wood, and those suspended, were 

 drier than the others. In 1827, I cut my sets rather early, 

 and laid about five Aberdeenshire bolls, or 1% ton, into a heap 

 for three weeks ; when taken out, a great part of the sets com- 

 posing the interior of the heap were like soap, and others were 

 like empty shells. About one tenth of them never appeared 

 above ground, and nearly a fifth of those which came were cut 

 up by the curl. 



The selection of the sets I consider the most important part 

 of potato-growing. I rent annually, from a gentleman about 

 three miles from my own place, from one to two acres for grow- 

 ing winter potatoes : there I raise all my seed for the ensuing 

 year ; and the potatoes that I use for this purpose are as different 

 from those grown in my own grounds as if they were imported 

 from the foot of the Himalaya Mountains. There may not 

 be such variety of soil in the vicinity of Dublin. When the 

 stems begin to fade, but long before the potatoes are ripe, I go 

 over the drills and pick out all the runaway stems, which show 

 themselves by standing upright and growing vigorously. At 

 the same time I dig up all the potatoes which I design for seed, 

 and lay them in pits of perhaps two bolls each, and leave them 

 uncovered for several weeks. I begin to dung and dig the 

 ground by the 1 st of March ; I take the seed potatoes from the pits 

 about the middle of the month, and cut them into good strong 

 sets, and spread them out to dry upon the floor of a summer- 

 house, for two or three days ; and then plant them at convenience. 



The common way of planting about Aberdeen, for generations 

 back, has been with a small dibble, about 1^ in. in diameter; 

 the planter carrying the sets in a bag before him. A good hand 

 will plant half an acre per day in this manner ; but, from the 

 small size of the dibble, some of the sets go plump to the 

 bottom, others half down, while others stop in entering. To 

 remedy this defect, I have invented a dibble {Jig. 76.) of the fol- 



