426 Bicton Gardens, their Culture and Management. 



moist rot, is caused by the same ; but, probably by tbeir being 

 nearer the outside of the heap, the steam and moisture cause 

 them to grow freely, or, I should say, shoot in the heap freely. 

 Thus potatoes that were good in autumn are found in spring to 

 be waxy, watery, and black. Pulling the shoots oiF in spring, 

 and exposing the seed to the atmosphere, which is very fre- 

 quently done with the seed potato when it is considered safe 

 from frost and they are are not required to eat, are the means of 

 producing tubers without stems ; and I will give you my reason 

 for forming that opinion. When a boy I was set to clear out 

 the bins in a potato cellar. I particularly noticed in one bin, 

 near a window that had been standing open for a considerable 

 time to allow the air to draw through to dry and sweeten the 

 cellar, and where the morning sun shone in, that the few old 

 potatoes there left had mostly formed plenty of tubers, and but 

 few shoots. I well knew they had their shoots and roots pulled 

 off two or three times in the previous winter and spring. Boy- 

 like, I collected some of the largest of the young tubers, took 

 them to some of the garden men just by, telling them there 

 were larger young potatoes in the cellar than they had out of 

 doors. On going to London afterwards to follow my business at 

 market-gardening, I observed new potatoes were produced from 

 potato cellars before we could grow them by forcing. It was a 

 practice in some of the gardens to stack a quantity in old tan or 

 light earth, in cellars or sheds, to cope with the others ; but 

 sometimes they grew all in one matted mass of roots and shoots. 

 In my efforts to get over this diflficulty, I remembered the 

 potato bin ; and by allowing them to grow a considerable length 

 before making use of them, pulling off clean all roots and 

 shoots, and exposing them to the sun and wind for a time, 

 they answered expectation tolerably well, only that a large 

 quantity was always lost with dry rot and wet rot, instead of 

 producing tubers. 



I am perfectly satisfied, from practice only, that were the 

 seed properly sorted out in autumn, and prepared and taken 

 care of through the season afterwards, as before recommended, 

 we should hear of but few complaints about any disease amongst 

 the potato crops : " prevention is the only profitable cure." 



Hearing so much of disease in this valuable vegetable this sea- 

 son, and observing questions asked in the Gardener's Chronicle, 

 and remarks made in that and other papers, I have been induced, 

 in my humble way, to state the above, which I have entirely 

 learned by practice. I also feared that I had not explained 

 myself sufficiently, in the foregoing letter, on the subject of 

 potato-growing. 



