126 



K I T C H E N - C A R DEN PLANTS. 



[chap. 



lav the rest as a bank on each side of it. Give the bed a little time 

 to heat and to sink, and have the earth upon the bed about eight 

 or nine inches deep. Plant the sets of potatoes in the earth upon 

 this bed, and about six inches down into that earth. The sets may 

 be put in at about a foot apart, and then yon may sow all over the 

 bed radishes, onions, and lettuces. These will come up immedi- 

 atelv, and the management of the bed is this. In the first place, 

 vou put hoops across it, leaving about eighteen inches between 

 every tw^o hoops ; then tie straight and smooth sticks, long- 

 ways of the bed upon the hoops ; then have mats good and 

 ^sound, to lay over the hoops ; and the bed ought to be of the 

 width that a mat will completely cover. At all times, when the 

 radishes will bear the open air, that is to say, when there is no 

 frost, the mats ought to be oif in the day-time ; and, if it be extra- 

 ordinarily warm for the season, and you are sure that no frost will 

 come in the night, they may be off in the night ; for, if the plants 

 be drawn up, the radishes, lettuces, and onions, will come to 

 nothing, and the potatoes will be spindling and will not produce. 

 By the time that the radishes have been all drawn and used, the 

 potatoes will have come up, and will have attained the height of 

 six or seven inches : the young onions will have been used also, 

 and the lettuce plants taken away and planted out in the open 

 ground ; so that the potatoes only will remain, and these w ill be 

 fit for use in ^lay, and perhaps early in May. Under the head 

 of radishes, I shall have to speak of a mode of getting potatoes 

 still earlier than this, though perhaps this is as early as anv one 

 need wish for. The bed need not be long. From twelve to 

 twenty feet is perhaps enough for any family. After the potatoes 

 are used, the earth should be drawn oft' the bed, the dung taken 

 out and applied to the manuring of the garden, the earth put back 

 again to the place whence it was dug out, and the ground applied 

 to the producing of some crop for the latter end of the Summer. 

 Potatoes may be raised from seed, that is to say, from the round 

 pods that grow upon the haulm ; and from these seeds new varie- 

 ties come, as in the case of the strawberry and many other 

 things. The pods should be gathered when dead ripe. The pods 

 should be squeezed to pieces, the seed separated from the pulp, 

 made very dry, kept dry till April or early in May. They should 

 be sowed in little drills, two feet asunder, the plants thinned out to 

 a foot apart, they should be cultivated like other potatoes, and 



