By John Lindley, Esq. 



159 



In the first place, it appears from this table that the rate of 

 increase is in fourteen cases in twenty in favour of Mr. Knight's 

 method ; or, in other words, of the plan of allowing every plant so 

 much room to grow in that the functions of its leaves may be per- 

 formed in the most perfect manner possible. In some instances, 

 this occurs in a most remarkable manner ; for instance, while La 

 Divergente, La Degeneree, and the long red Kidney yielded, in 

 spaces four feet square, as 1 to 122.81 ; 64.57 : and 81.83, the same 

 sorts, in a more crowded cultivation, increased only at the rate of 1 

 to 28.53, 15.73 and 22.00 respectively. These, as might be ex- 

 pected, are very strong growing spreading sorts, each occupying 

 naturally at least four feet square. Of the six cases that appear 

 against Mr. Knight's experiment, four are so in so small a degree 

 as not to be much deserving consideration; while two others, 

 Numbers 3 and 6, give a result so far at variance both with all the 

 others, and, indeed with probability, that it is impossible not to 

 suspect that the tubers of those kinds, used in Mr. Knight's expe- 

 riment, had either been injured before planting, or subsequently 

 by an attack from vermin. 



But while the rate of increase appears thus favourable to Mr. 

 Knight's plan, the produce per acre is in eighteen cases out of 

 twenty, exactly the reverse ; as might indeed have been anticipated. 

 Of the two cases in which the weight per acre is in favour of very 

 wide cultivation, both the plants are very strong growers ; one of 

 them, La Degeneree, is a curious instance of a kind capable of 

 yielding at a rate of increase as high as 1 to 64.57 yet not pro- 

 ducing on the whole much more than two tons per acre in close 

 cultivation, while its produce where it had room to grow exceeded 

 eight tons and a half. 



We find that in all those instances in which a greater weight is 

 obtained in close, than in wide, cultivation, the difference is uni- 

 formly in proportion to the vigour or debility of the variety. In 

 those cases in which the produce is very small in four feet squares, 



VOL. I. 2nd series. Y 



