212 On the Culture of forced Potatoes. 



with excessive rapidity, and in a few days begin to generate 

 tubers. One stem alone should be suffered to grow in each 

 pot; for where more remain the tubers are smaller and the 

 crop is not increased in weight. When the plants grow in 

 small pots, the gardener will have apparently the advantage 

 of being able to take out the largest Potatoes by inverting 

 the pots, without materially injuring the fibrous roots ; but 

 this practice will rarely be found eligible, because the plants, 

 having the range of their roots confined to the limits of the 

 pot, soon occupy the whole of their pasture, and therefore 

 do not produce their tubers in succession as they will under 

 common circumstances. 



The lights should be drawn off during the day, when the 

 spring is far enough advanced to permit this to be done 

 without injury to the plants : and early in May the pots 

 may be taken out of the hot-bed, which may be employed 

 for other purposes ; and as it must necessarily have been 

 kept very dry during the latter period of the growth of the 

 Potatoes, it will generally afford a strong heat on being well 

 watered. 



1 confine my plants (which are naturally of very dwarfish 

 growth) to small pots, because under this mode of culture 

 the tubers acquire maturity sooner, and are better ; but the 

 crop is not so heavy as when their fibrous roots are permitted 

 to extend more widely : and therefore, where a larger, but 

 rather later crop, is required, the best plan is to put the 

 tubers to vegetate in small pots, and from these to remove 

 them, with their roots and germs uninjured, to the hot-bed. 



I tried the effect of placing a few tubers (half a dozen only), 

 on the floor of my cellar, disposing them just in contact with 



