POTATO PLANTING. 
27 
similar sloping form; these two slopes being 
made to fit, it only remains to cut a slit in each 
slope in such position that the tongues formed 
by the cuts will tuck into one another, and 
bring the slopes together with a good splice : 
this tied and clayed as before mentioned, will 
secure a good union. To sum up the various 
modes of grafting, it matters not how the join 
is formed so that it be neatly fitted, the two 
firmly tied, and the air well kept out by the 
clay. Supposing this to be joined near the 
ground, the graft must be watched, and only 
the strongest bud be allowed to grow up : this 
should be encouraged to grow straight until it 
is tall enough for the trunk of a standard. All 
this time, the side or lateral shoots must be 
removed, except the top four or five, and as 
new ones come at the top the bottom ones are 
to be removed, so that there shall not be more 
than the half-dozen branches when the trunk 
shall have attained the height it is intended to 
be ; these half-dozen shoots are then allowed 
to form the head; of which, however, we shall 
speak at a future time, when, after mentioning 
the various modes of grafting, we give lists 
of the best stocks on which to graft all the 
leading subjects. 
POTATO PLANTING. 
~ No one who has been a reader of the 
Horticultural and Agricultural periodicals of 
the last two or three years can otherwise but 
feel astonished at the oft-repeated complaints 
and outcry, making from all quarters, about 
great failures in the crops of that useful 
esculent, the potato. Many people indeed, 
both producers and consumers, have be- 
come alarmed with the somewhat prevalent 
opinion that the potato is fast and hopelessly 
degenerating, — getting tired of the land, — 
unable to live on it ; having exhausted it of 
the elements, the chemical ingredients, the 
primordial substances, necessary for its pro- 
per development, &c. &c. There may be 
some truth in the idea, but certainly not so 
much as people imagine ; and, although there 
were, we ought not altogether to despair, as 
undoubtedly Chemistry could inform us what 
these principles are, and how we could again 
add them to the exhausted soil. But I, for 
one, am inclined to believe, — and I ground 
my belief on practice, — that the soil and the 
tribes are not so much to blame, or so far 
wrong, as the modes of culture and of storing 
the crop. I am not going to enter upon the 
field of general culture, as at present prac- 
tised, any further than to ask your readers 
if, from their own practice or observation, 
they do not know that the present practice 
is to plant the potatoes in rows so contiguous 
to each other that, when the plants come to 
bloom, or begin to form their tubers, the 
shaws are so closely met that the field, or 
plot, looks close, smooth, and even, as a clover 
field ; air and sunshine are excluded, and, con- 
sequently, the formation of healthy tubers is 
prevented. Or, if it were possible that 
healthy tubers could be produced by such 
over-close culture, the mode of storing would 
spoil them. To throw them roughly, and in 
large quantities, into pits or houses, may, 
perhaps, do well enough for potatoes to be 
used for consumption, but it is a very wrong 
way to keep or treat potatoes meant for 
planting. In saying this, I use no conjectural 
assertion : every one may have observed how 
freely tubers left in the ground over winter 
(provided they have had sufficient soil over 
them to keep out the frost) spring up in pro- 
per season ; while the main crop, having been 
stored away in large quantities, upon being 
planted, grow but indifferently. This, then, 
being the general practice, and what I call a 
wrong one, it behoves me now to say some- 
thing about what I may think a right one. 
Fortunately that can be done in a few words; 
as there is no mystery nor complicated specu- 
lations connected with such a process. It is 
only necessary, in the first place, to select, at 
lifting time, for next year's sets, good clear 
medium-sized tubers, having prominent, but 
not over-sunken, eyes : handle the tubers care- 
fully ; taking good heed not to bruise them ; 
and, in storing them away, do so in such a 
manner and situation that they will neither 
sweat nor shrivel, and where frost will not 
reach them : for garden purposes, I store 
them away among dry sand, in two-bushel 
hampers. The second requisite is to have 
the ground well wrought and in good condi- 
tion ere you attempt planting in spring ; 
which must be done in rows four and a half 
feet to six feet apart, according to kind. My 
own practice in garden-planting is to form 
trenches six inches deep and eighteen inches 
wide, (five feet apart from centre to centre.) 
in which I place a depth of three inches of 
well-spent, but upon no account rank, dung; 
over which I plant my sets, these being either 
whole tubers, if below the medium size, or 
cuts of larger ones, cut only the day I plant 
them, and well dusted with jiour of lime im- 
mediately they are cut. (It is a great and fatal 
error to allow the sets either to shrivel pre- 
vious to setting, or to plant them fresh cut 
