526 



THE SWEET POTATO. 



The Sweet Potato soon became fasliionable once morej and 

 the many market gardeners of the day grew the vegetable 

 largely. Later its cultivation was again abandoned for the 

 sake of more profitable plants_, and at the present time 

 MM. Decouffle and Gontier are the only persons who pay 

 any attention to it. 



Instead of stopping to inquire into the modifications that 

 the cultivation of the Sweet Potato has undergone^ we will 

 confine ourselves to saying that at present three varieties are 

 cultivated — the red, the yellow, and the New Orleans violet. 

 They are all grown in hotbeds, and they are propagated in 

 the following manner : — At the beginning of January a few 

 tubercles are selected from those which appear to be the best 

 preserved, and planted in a hotbed, the frame of which must 

 be covered with mats during the night. In the course of a 

 short time they begin to grow, and the young buds must 

 be taken off when they reach the height of from two 

 and a half inches to three and a half inches ; they are then 

 pricked into pots of about two and a half inches in dia- 

 meter, which are plunged in heat and covered with a 

 bell-glass, after which they may be watered as they 

 require. As soon as the young plants strike, an event 

 that soon takes place, the bell-glass must be lifted gradually 

 until they are strong enough to dispense with it altogether 

 without drooping. 



Such readers as care about this root — ^which, by the way, 

 is of agreeable flavour when well cooked — may grow it most 

 readily and effectively by placing it in a frame or pit after 

 the spring crop has been taken out ; or, indeed, on a ridge 

 like the ridge Cucumber ; but the pit or frame is the safest 

 way generally — the lights being taken off. As pits and 

 frames are frequently empty from about the 1st of June till 

 autumn, room might be readily spared for it without loss, 

 and a useful vegetable added to our stock, which, fine as it 

 is, is yet in want of variety. The roots may be bought in 

 Covent-garden. The red variety is the best. The way to 

 treat them is to pot them about the end of April; start 

 them in a gentle heat, and have them fresh and stubby for 

 planting out in the pit or frame about the 1st of June. 



