252 



POTATO. 



there is in a set, the more strong and vigorous will be its 

 growth at first." 



Quantity of sets, — Abercrombie directs, for a plot of the 

 early and secondary crops , eight feet wide by sixteen in 

 length, planted in rows, fifteen inches asunder by nine 

 inches in the row, a quarter of a peck of roots or cuttings. 

 For full-timed and main crops^ a compartment, twelve feet 

 wide by thirty-two in length, planted in rows, two feet dis- 

 tant, half a peck. For field cultivatioUj English writers say 

 that it requires twenty bushels and a half to plant an acre 

 with cut potatoes ; and thirty-seven bushels and a quarter 

 of whole potatoes. 



Soil. — " The soil," says Loudon, " in which the potato 

 thrives best, is a light loam, neither too dry nor too moist, 

 but if rich, so much the better. — They may, however, be 

 grown well on many other sorts of land, especially those of 

 the mossy, moory, and other similar kinds, where they are 

 free from stagnant moisture. The best flavoured potatoes 

 are almost always produced from a newly broken-up pas- 

 ture-ground, not manured ; or from any new soil, as the 

 site of a grubbed-up copse or hedge, or the site of old 

 buildings or roads. The best climate for the potato is one 

 rather moist than dry, and temperate or cool rather than 

 hot. Hence the excellence of the Irish potatoes, which 

 grow in a dry, loamy, calcareous soil, and moist and tem- 

 perate climate ; and hence, also, the inferiority of the pota- 

 toes of France, Spain, Italy, and even Germany. In short, 

 the potato is grown no where in the w^orld to the same de- 

 gree of perfection as in Ireland and Lancashire, and not 

 even in the south of England, so well as in Scotland and 

 the north and western counties; all which is, in our opin- 

 ion, clearly attributable to the climate." 



Although a light loam is a proper soil for the potato in a 

 cool and moist climate, a strong and heavy loam is most suit- 

 able for the same root in a dry and hot climate. In a paper 

 read before the New York Horticultural Society, in 1823, by 

 Wm. Wilson, an experienced horticulturist, are the following 

 remarks on this subject : — " Those soils which prove the very 

 bane of the potato here [in the United States] are just such 

 as prove the most congenial for them in Britain. And so, 

 on the contrary, the best soils, by far, for producing the 

 driest and best flavoured potatoes here, and altogether the 

 most abundant crops, are those of a strong, heavy loam.'- 

 These assertions are corroborated by a number of experi 



