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LX VIII. An Account of an improved Method of raising Early 

 Potatoes in the open ground. In a Letter to the Secretary. 

 % Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq.F.R.S.fyc. President, 



Read June 5, 1821. 



Dear Sir, 



The destruction, in the present season, of early crops of 

 Potatoes, by frost in this vicinity, (particularly in the gardens 

 of those who could but ill bear the loss they have sustained) 

 has led me to address to you the following account of some 

 deviations from the ordinary modes of practice, in the cul- 

 ture of that plant which I have found successful, in not only 

 affording plants, which more effectually recover when im- 

 peded by frost, but also in furnishing a larger and more 

 early produce under ordinary circumstances. 



It has long been known that abundant crops of late and 

 luxuriant varieties of Potatoes may be obtained by planting 

 very small pieces only of their tuberous root : for the plants 

 of those varieties always acquire a considerable age, before 

 they begin to generate tubers, and therefore do not too soon 

 begin to expend themselves. But plants of early varieties, 

 very soon after they first spring from the ground, begin 

 necessarily to expend themselves in the production of 

 tubers ; and the size which these acquire within any given 

 period in the spring will be to a great extent regulated by 

 the strength of the plants at the period when they first spring 

 from the soil ; and strong plants of such varieties can be 

 vol. iv. 3 M 



