284 CULTIVATION OF POTATOES. 



CULTIVATION OF POTATOES. 



Probably no crop has caused so much attention and talk, for the last ten years, as the potato 

 crop. Being adapted to a cold moist climate, and yielding a large amount of nutriment, it 

 has been widely cultivated, and depended upon as food by large communities. When a crop 

 of this description is cut off and fails generally, so as to create want, it becomes a loss which 

 can not but be felt by the nations at large. 



The potato is easily cultivated, and requires, probably, less care than most crops ; yet it well 

 repays a careful and thorough cultivation. The true mode of cultivating this crop is to prepare 

 the ground by deep ploughing ; it gives opportunity for the extension of the fibres upon which 

 the tubers grow. Fermented manures are better than the long unfermented, and upon a mellow 

 soil, wood ashes is more valuable than other fertilizers, as it furnishes the supply of potash 

 which the young tuber requires. Rich or nitrogenous manures, and the saline compounds 

 generally, increase the growth of vines, without promoting the development* of the tuber. The 

 tubers have multiplied greatly in variety ; and it is a matter worthy of notice, that a diversity 

 of excellences are borne by these varieties. The ripening of potatoes has not received the at- 

 tention it deserves. If it has attained a common size it is often regarded as fit for the table. 

 But it is with the potato as with apples and other fruit, there is a state of ripeness and 

 maturity required before it is eaten, if we would secure and possess its better qualities. The 

 Merino, for instance, is a spring potato ; others are winter, and others still are autumnal. The 

 Early Shaw is one which attains its goodness in the autumn, and retains its excellence till the 

 succeeding spring ; it is not, however a good producer, and its tubers are rather small. 



The great drawback to the cultivation of the potato is its liability to rot. For nearly ten 

 years this tendency to be diseased has been on the increase. It has varied, however, in its 

 intensity, but more or less disease has been annually observed. It has assumed, at some points, 

 great energy, so that whole fields have been so thoroughly infected that the sound potatoes 

 were not numerous enough to pay for digging. 



The investigation of the nature and cause of the malady which has destroyed the potato has 

 employed as many minds as the cholera itself; and, like the cholera, the cause is still unknown 

 and mysterious, and probably will continue to be so — that is, the real true cause. Some have 

 imagined that it is an insect, which poisons the sap ; some supposed that it was to be found in 

 the constitution of the soil ; others, in a change which had been brought about by the long 

 cultivation of the tuber, without renewing the plant from the seed ; that in reality its vital 

 powers were on the wane, and that its vigor was about becoming extinct. All these views, 

 however, have fewer advocates now than formerly. Those who thought the cause existed in some 

 defect in the soil, proposed to remedy it by the addition of various elements ; and those who 

 thought the potato was worn out through long cultivation renewed their tubers from the seed, 

 and even sent to the land of its nativity for the vigorous plant, upon the mountains of Chili and 

 Peru ; but these failed. The character of the tuber, however, is important, for some varieties 

 have escaped, in a measure, when others have been very generally diseased. My own views 



