98 



On the Potatoe, 



limits of the frigid zone, is very warm and bright during a period, 

 which I believe to be quite long enough to ripen any early variety 

 of the Potatoe perfectly. 



It is my wish to send in the spring one or two Potatoes of each 

 of the varieties, which I think likely to prove valuable ; and I shall 

 be happy subsequently to send a quantity of any, which may be 

 approved. 



In raising varieties of the Potatoe from seeds, it is always ex- 

 pedient to use artificial heat. I have trained up a young seedling 

 plant in a somewhat shaded situation in the stove, till it has been 

 between four and five feet high, and then removed it to the open 

 ground in the beginning of May, covering its stem during almost 

 its whole length lightly with mould, and by such means I have 

 obtained, within the first year, nearly a peck of Potatoes from a 

 single plant. But I usually sow the seeds in a hot-bed early in 

 March, and, after having given them one transplantation in the 

 hot-bed, I have gradually exposed them to the open air, and planted 

 them out in the middle of May : and by immersing their stems 

 rather deeply into the ground, I have within the same season 

 usually seen each variety in such a state of maturity as has enabled 

 me to judge, with a good deal of accuracy, respecting its future 

 merits. 



I stated in a former communication two years ago, that I had 

 obtained from a small plantation of the early ash-leaved Kidney 

 Potatoe, a produce equivalent to that of six hundred and sixty-five 

 bushels, of eighty pounds each, per acre; and my crop of that 

 variety, in the present year, was to a small extent greater. By a 

 mistake of my workmen I was prevented ascertaining, with accu- 

 racy, the produce per acre of a plantation of Lankman's Potatoe : 

 but one of my friends having made a plantation of that variety 

 precisely in conformity with the instructions given in my former 



