346 
Cultivation of the Potato. 
farmer should be without a considerable stock of potatoes. I 
have for several years been tryin* experiments in the cultivation 
and preservation of potatoes, the results of which have led to a 
somewhat different course from that pursued by many cultivators 
of this valuable root. I am aware that many will say it is too 
troublesome ; but this is a mistake too often indulged in ; for if we 
take 55. worth of trouble more than ordinary, and we get for that 
5.9. expended 1.5s. worth more crop than if that 5?. are not ex- 
pended, all will agree with me that it is a fallacious objection. 
Many writers have asserted that the potato should be per- 
fectly ripe before it is taken up to be stored away for seed ; but 
this certainly does not agree with my own practice. Mj' atten- 
tion was first led to this point merely by accident : for having to 
dig some early potatoes every day in the fore part of the summer 
for the use of a family, some that were greened before digging, 
and some that perhaps were not large enough for cooking, were 
from time to time cast to one side of the bed : these having lain 
in the sun some time and become quite green, I selected the best 
of them to put away for seed, and the pigs had the others. The 
chief part of my seed-potatoes were however left in the ground to 
get quite ripe. The next season I was surprised to find a very 
much better crop from those which had been accidentally dug 
before they were ripe than from the main crop ; still I was not 
satisfied that it was the seed which made the difference. The 
same summer, however, I dug half my seed-bed about three weeks 
before the potatoes were ripe, and left them on the ground until 
the other half was ripe also, when both were stored in the same 
quarters. In April following I took some from each heap, and 
planted them alternately row by row ; of those taken up before 
they were ripe, not one failed ; but of those left in the ground 
until they were quite ripe, about one in twenty-five failed or 
went blind. About the middle of July the crop was taken up 
and carefully weighed : two rows of those grown from seed dug 
before it was quite ripe weighed 69 pounds, while the two rows 
from the seed left in the ground until quite ripe only weighed 57 
pounds. The sort was the early ash-leaf kidneys, the land strong 
loamy soil. 
Tliis led me to conclude that the seed-potato, or, more pro- 
perly speaking, the potato intended for sets, should always be 
taken up about three weeks before it is ripe, because it is my 
opinion that the unripe potato decays more readily, and so is more 
easily worked upon by the young stems before they can fix their 
roots firm enough in the soil to support themselves independently, 
than when it has been left to get perfectly ripe before taking up. 
Every cultivator of the potato knows that if the tuber that was 
planted for seed is not decayed, the produce is but small and few. 
