50 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



plants to get light and air, otherwise they may as well be 

 planted under trees or hedges. The eyes or buds nearest 

 the root-fibre sprout a week or more later than those 

 farthest from it, on the same principle that the top shoots 

 of a tree come first into leaf ; and, therefore, in planting 

 uncut sets, the produce will be unequal in size, and ripen 

 at different times, if the greater part of the eyes are not 

 extracted. In planting cut sets, the two sorts of eyes 

 should be planted in separate rows, as is always done in 

 Lancashire. Potatoes for planting are found to answer 

 best when procured from a different soil, as they seem to 

 like a change of food ; though this is most probably 

 owing to the new soil in which they are placed being well 

 furnished with those elements which they had so largely 

 withdrawn from their former situation ; for it is now well 

 known that few plants, and especially potatoes, will attain 

 to any perfection, or produce good crops, if planted in the 

 same soil for two or three successive years. 



Drills are preferable to the Irish lazy beds, or to 

 dibbling. The drills ought to be two, or even three feet 

 apart, the manure spread at the bottom, the cut sets dropt 

 over, or as some prefer, under the manure at from eight 

 inches to a foot distant, the uncut sets at two feet distant, 

 and the whole covered with three or four inches' depth of 

 earth. An application of a mixture of bone-dust and lime 

 will also be highly beneficial, and should be scattered spa- 

 ringly along the drills, before covering the plants with soil. 



Around London, it is the most usual practice to dibble 

 potatoes with a large two-handled dibber, having an iron 

 guard to prevent it from going too deep ; but this is done 

 chiefly for the sake of saving time, and is by no means so 

 good a practice as that of ridging the ground intended 

 for potatoes in the autumn, or early in the winter, and 

 allowing it to remain in this state through the winter, till 

 the time arrives for planting out, when the potatoes or 

 sets may be dropt into the valleys between the ridges, the 

 manure placed over them, and part of the earth from the 

 ridges hoed in upon them, leaving the remainder till they 

 have started growing and require earthing up. This 

 practice is productive of great advantage, particularly in 

 wet adhesive soils ; as, by being exposed to the action of 



