48 



JOtTRNAX OF HOKTICULTXTRE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ January 17, 1B65. 



below the surface. Any spare bulbs I plant in good gro\ind 

 in the open air, and by putting 5 or 6 inches of soil over 

 them I do not find the frost injure them. 



At Ashton-undcr-Lyne, where wo certainly can grow 

 Liliums and Gladiolus well, I have seen scores of Liliums 

 with from ten to eighteen flowers on a spike. I had last 

 summer, in the conservatory, spikes thicker than my thumb, 

 with from twelve to sixteen flowers on each ; but almost 

 everybody here believes in treating these bulbs the same as 

 if they were growing a lai-ge Cabbage — viz., plenty of room 

 and good stutf for them to feed on. My stock of Gladiolus 

 consists of about fifty-eight sorts, but Mr. Tipping, an old 

 amateur florist, has upwards of one hundred, and well 

 indeed he grows them. As to his prf&tice, I cannot speak 

 further than that he feeds them well. My own practice is 

 to give them plenty of good manure. To" two beds 7 yards 

 long by2i broad, I this yeai- added to each two good barrow- 

 loads of old Mushroom-bed mould and one bag of cocoa-nut 

 fibre, and worked the whole well with a four-tined fork. 

 The dung fi-om the Mushroom-bed I allowed to lie on the 

 bed to sweeten for some weeks before it was worked in. I 

 invariably plant my bulbs in pots about the middle of 

 March, and use 24's or 32's. This year I made a compost of 

 cocoa-nut fibre, new soil, and well-sweetened dung, in equal 

 quantities for planting them in. This way of growing the 

 Gladiolus of course finds me plenty of work, and in the 

 present year I intend to plant as soon as possible in the 

 open ground some of every sort that I have plenty of. I 

 transfer the potted bulbs to the open ground in May. By 

 the above mode of starting them they flower sooner, for 

 many of the sorts would scai-cely throw up their bloom- 

 spikes before the season was too far gone. I wish our cross- 

 breeders could obtain a race possessing the hardiness of 

 Gladiolus communis. I have probably upwards of a thou- 

 sand bulbs of that sort. — John Hague, Ashion-undei--Lyne. 



PEODUCT OF POTATOES. 



I THINK Mr. Abbey could hardly have read my former 

 communication with sufficient attention before commenting 

 upon it, or he would not have so much misunderstood its 

 purport. In these days of rapping, table-turning, the Daven- 

 port Brothers, Professor Pepper's ghost, and divers sjiiritual 

 and other manifestations and delusions, I do not know that 

 I am not to assume it as a compliment when he seems 

 to suspect me of being of a somewhat incredulous turn of 

 mind. I beg him, notwithstanding, to believe that I am 

 not incapable of accepting facts on trustworthy evidence. 

 I freely accept the forty-fourfold return of " W. W. H.'s " 

 blue Potato, not exactly by reason of Mr. Abbey's argument, 

 but because " W. "W. H." assures us there was no error, and 

 you. Sir, vouch for his responsibility. I accept also as fact 

 Mr. Abbey's correspondent Mr. Lupton's t\vo wonderful 

 roots of 43 lbs. and 41 lbs. respectively, simply because I 

 have had credible information of a still higher result than 

 either. 



But all this has not the slightest bearing on the drift of 

 my observations. Certain experiments were published in 

 your Journal by " W. W. H." which gave an enormous 

 superiority of productiveness to a certain seedling Potato. 

 I forwarded to you another sot of experiments made with 

 great care and accuracy on a larger and, as I thought, there- 

 fore a more reliable scale, wherein the same seedling stood 

 much below some older sorts, and below other seedlings of the 

 BEune growers, in which respect they coincided with some 

 experiments published by those growers themselves. My 

 sole object was to show that Paterson's Irish Blue was far 

 from always maintaining the superiority attributed to it. 

 I ventured also to express my opinion that some error might 

 have arisen from this circumstance, that on the data before 

 us the produce ascribed to these Irish Blues was at the rate 

 of more than 50 tons per acre. 



Now Mr. Abbey seems to impugn, I will not say the faii-- 

 noss, but the propriety of my adopting this assumption on 

 two grounds — because I do not say wliat precise distance 

 is meant by the words " ordinary distance of sets," and 

 because I do not, any more than "W. W. H." or " Ui-wauus 

 AND Onwakijb," give the weight of t)ie sets. If Mr. Abbey 

 had given my observatioDH more than a cursory glance he 



would not, I feel sure, have said this. I did give the weight 

 of the sets, and if he had continued his own quotation from 

 my letter, " The quantity of seed for an acre at the ordinary 

 distance with rows 3 feet apart, &o," only three words 

 farther; if the " &o." had been made to follow instead of go 

 before the next three words " is, we see," he would not have 

 failed to observe that I had precisely stated in the table 

 above the weight of the sets used, to which the words " we 

 see" (the quantity being then repeated) were an unmistake- 

 able reference. 



I omitted to specify what I considered the " ordinary 

 distance in the rows " to be, because it was not necessary to 

 my argument to specify it. The quantity of the ground and 

 the weight of the sets being given, nothing more was 

 required to show that a forty-fourfold return would give 

 upwards of 50 tons. I am not aware that it ever for a 

 moment entered into the head of any one of us to inquire, 

 as Mr. Abbey imputes to us, " what kind of Potato gives the 

 greatest yield from the least seed," instead of the greatest 

 yield from the same ground. Neither can I see anything in 

 " W. W. H.'s" letter or my own which should lay us open 

 to such imputation. 



As to the suggested possibility that one quantity of these 

 sets might all weigh 4 ozs. each, and the other all 2 ozs. 

 each, I am sure Mr. Abbey will excuse my entertaining the 

 question. The sets in both instances were had from Messrs. 

 Paterson themselves, and there is not the slightest ground 

 for believing they differed on the average. li " W. W. H.'s" 

 14 lbs. of these sets had occupied a much larger space of 

 ground than the rest there cannot be a doubt he would have 

 said so. In the absence of anything exceptional being 

 stated wo can recikon only by the conditions before us. We 

 may abandon forming conclusions altogether if we must 

 first admit into our premises every possible variation the 

 imagination can suggest. 



When Mr. Abbey says " Experiments of this kind are apt 

 to lead to an incorrect conclusion when the produce per acre 

 is calculated by the produce of a certain weight of sets 

 without stating the extent of ground occupied by them," 

 he states the exact contrary of my statement, but he takes 

 up precisely my position. I hope he will allow me to point 

 out to him that this is but a repetition of my own observa- 

 tion when I said " The only reliable comparative results 

 from experiments of this kind would require not only equal 

 weight but equal size or number of sets," the number of the 

 sets of course determining the quantity of the ground. I 

 would beg leave again to add " The larger the area the 

 nearer the approximation to truth." In fact I think so 

 little can experiments on a small scale and under excep- 

 tional cii-cumstances be relied upon, that even the two 

 monster roots grown by Mi-. Lupton do not flatter me with 

 hopes of 50 tons per acre. Certainly Mr. Abbey's other 

 averages do not encourage the expectation. Still experi- 

 ments of this kind are very valuable if they are conducted 

 with accuracy, several times repeated, and conclusions from 

 them not pushed too far. They may then often lead^ to 

 useful results. They might, for instance, unravel one im- 

 portant point to which Mr. Abbey adverts — the distance at 

 which Potatoes may most productively be set. For myself, 



1 have been for some time of opinion that if we are to make 

 any nearer approach to the 50 tons per acre it must be in 

 the direction of Mr. Lupton's experiments detailed by Mr. 

 Abbey. For several years I have grown my garden Pota- 

 toes in something approaching that style of cultivation. I 

 borrowed the idea from a practice I observed in parts of 

 Cheshire and Shropshire, where it is called clumping. Each 

 clump occupies a square yard of ground. The set is i)laced 



2 or 3 inches above the level of the soil, and on whatever 

 manure is used. A mound of eai-th is raised over it. When 

 tlie stems are about 8 inches high they are bent down 

 gently, and retained in that position by a covering of soil. 

 As the growth proceeds more earth is added, ar.d tlie clump 

 enlarged. On this plan I have invariably had larger Pota- 

 toes and a better crop from the same seed than from rows 

 at any distance, and I have always found them prove free 

 from disease. The tops of the mounds are never over- 

 shadowed l/.v the foliage, but are freely oxijosed to the action 

 of sun and air, from wliich 1 assume the chief benefit arises. 

 Ah yet I have myself tried the system only in my garden, but 

 th'jy grow Potatoes thus in the field in the counties I have 



