126 On Planting Potatoes. 



Potatoes, which I had recently obtained from seed. Those 

 had been planted, in the two preceding years, in a poor 

 dry soil, and the tubers in consequence only, I imagined, of 

 such culture, had declined from their original size ; and to 

 that I concluded they would return in a different soil, and 

 under better culture. But on planting them in my garden, 

 I found that few of the tubers exceeded the size of Cherries, 

 and that the value of both varieties was totally lost. A few 

 tubers of each remained implanted, and from these, in the 

 end of June, the young shoots were broken off and planted, 

 according to the manner detailed in the Horticultural Trans- 

 actions otlSlO* The tubers these produced were also 

 planted late in the following summer, and in the last year 

 both varieties had resumed their primary size, which is about 

 ten times as great as that to which they had been reduced. 

 I shall take an opportunity, in the autumn, of sending a 

 few tubers of these varieties, in their restored state, to the 

 Society. 



New varieties of the Potatoe are so readily obtained from 

 seeds, that the preservation of any one now cultivated is an 

 object deserving little attention ; but if the crops throughout 

 the British empire can, with the same expense of manure 

 and culture, be considerably encreased by a mode, which is 

 not attended with any expense, of preparing proper tubers 

 in the preceding year, for planting, the publication of such 

 mode of management in the Transactions of the Horticul- 

 tural Society may be productive of much national benefit ; 

 and I therefore venture again to trespass on their patience 

 respecting a plant, on the culture of which I have already 

 so often addressed them. 



* Vol. i. page 11)2. 



