THE POTATO. 



639 



potato in the management of live stock, and its field culture, being foreign 

 to this work, we shall confine ourselves to a brief notice of its culture in 

 gardens. 



1406. Varieties, — -Early sorts : stems without flowers, and generally from 

 one foot to eighteen inches in length. Ash-leaved kidney: very early, 

 prolific, and well flavoured. Fox's seedling and Early Manly : not quite so 

 early, but very prolific, and of excellent quality ; the last, perhaps the most 

 profitable early potato that can be grown. The Rufford kidney^ syn. 

 lady's finger ; considered the earliest variety in Lancashire, and also the best 

 flavoured, but not quite so prolific as the preceding kinds. Shaw's early : 

 a large, comparatively coarse, sort, generally cultivated in fields for the 

 London market ; very prolific, but not very mealy or high-flavoured. 



Late sorts. — Stems with flowers, those with pink, red, or purple 

 tubers, blue, and of the white tubers, white ; generally between two feet and 

 three feet in length. The bread-fruit : roundish, white, mealy, prolific. The 

 purple eye : large, round, and mealy. The red-nosed kidney and the white 

 Yorkshire kidney : both mealy fine-flavoured sorts, and the latter will keep 

 till June. Kemp's seedling, a very prolific variety, of excellent quality, 

 much grown in Lancashire. The late bright red, syn. Devonshire red : 

 round, mealy, and by frequent turning, and, as soon as they begin to sprout, 

 picking out the eyes, will keep good till J uly. Lancashire pink-eyed : 

 round, large, mealy, and an excellent keeper. Purple, syn. Scotch purple : 

 small, round, mealy, and keeps later than any other variety. Those who 

 require a greater number of kinds may consult Chatwin's Catalogue of 

 Potatoes, published in 1842, in which, about one hundred and fifty varieties 

 are described. 



1407. Culture. — The potato is propagated by cuttings of the tuber, 

 technically sets ; and where new sorts are wanted by seed. A quarter of a 

 peck of tubers will produce from 120 to 150 sets, according to the size of the 

 tuber; and as these should be planted at from six inches to nine inches 

 a part in the drill, according to the kind of potato, a calculation may readily 

 be made of the quantity of any particular kind wanted for sets. (See 916.) 

 The result of many experiments in the culture of the potato by sets, made 

 by the late Mr. Knight, the Horticultural Society, Sir G. S. Mackenzie, and 

 others, is thus given by Dr. Lindley in the Gardener's Chronicle : — 



" Good sets with single eyes, taken from partially ripe tubers, or small 

 tubers undivided, furnish the best means of multiplying the potato. Large 

 tubers have been recommended, but it has been proved experimentally that 

 no advantage is derived from employing them, while there is a great disad- 

 vantage, in consequence of the large quantity required. It has been found, 

 too, that if the tubers are over- ripe, that is to say, have acquired all the 

 mealiness and solidity possible, they are apt to produce the curl. It is, 

 therefore, the practice with some growers of potatoes to take up in the 

 autumn what they want for ' seed ' before the general crop is ripe, or to 

 select for sets the worst-ripened potatoes they can pick out. 



The period of planting should be as soon after the 1st of March as cir» 

 cumstances will permit. ' I have uniformly found,' says Mr. Knight, ' that 



: to obtain crops of potatoes of great weight and excellence, the period of 

 planting should never be later than the beginning of March.* This is in 



i order to give the potato as long a summer as possible. From experiments 

 made some years ago in the garden of the Horticultural Society, it appeared 



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