526 
THE POTATO AND ITS CULTURE. 
These are all rubbed off, and the Potatoes 
sent to market. Those who are careless enough 
to drive everything off to the last moment, 
buy them for seed. They are cut, they bleed, 
are planted, and it may be that all the produce 
are tainted with some disease which renders 
them worthless, or the very seed itself rots 
instead of coming up. We take it for granted 
that, although to many excellent growers of 
the Potato the following will be useless, there 
may be some, perhaps not a few, who will 
derive benefit from the information ; and 
it is, at least, certain they will not be misled. 
In the first place, the seed Potatoes should be 
selected wdien a crop is ripened and dug up, 
and there is the best chance of being suited 
with appropriate tubers. We should, for choice, 
select those which are too small to bring any- 
thing like a price at the market, but not the 
smallest; say the size of a walnut for pickling. 
These we should lay on the top of the ground 
to have all the sun, and have them turned, so 
as not to sweat. If the weather proved wet 
long together, it would be no use to keep 
them out; but the object is, to dry a good deal 
of their moisture, and therefore, if one week 
would not do, on account of thew r et, we should 
give them two. These, when drjr and hard, 
may be put away into a dry stove, where they 
can be turned from time to time, and should by 
no means lie too thick, so as to sweat and get 
damp. Here they may remain until planting 
time. Considering that the Potato grows 
from any depth, it seems strange that people 
should be so fearful of deep planting, as to 
frequently cause a whole crop to be frosted in 
early spring, even before they are above 
ground. We have never feared early planting, 
because we plant deep, and never dib them in. 
Six clear inches of earth over them will resist 
any frost, and they will rarely come up from 
that depth too soon, whereas they begin to work 
directly they are planted. It must not be 
imagined that, because we plant deep, there 
wall be any less necessity to earth up, for 
the Potatoes form where they can have 
the benefit of the air, and the fruit would 
come therefore close to the surface, even 
if the tubers were a foot deep. It is certain 
that deeper planting than is usual has been 
found beneficial; and they should be planted 
in drills, and not be dibbled, for dibbling 
hardens the sides and bottoms of the holes in 
wet ground, and is a bad plan at the best, 
though in the planting of a small plot it is the 
general practice. Potatoes planted in drills 
made by the plough are frequently not deep 
enough, and this is fatal if hard frost comes, 
even before they germinate. But the tubers 
once planted six inches deep, so that frost 
cannot reach the stem, rarely fail; and it is 
in our opinion, a pity that any but wdiole 
tubers should be depended on. At present, 
the pigs eat the best sets that can be had, that 
is, the largest of their chats ; and it will take 
some time to beat it into the heads of the 
growers that these largest should be made a 
better use of. When the Potatoes come up, 
the earth should belaid smooth to their stems, 
and rather raised than otherwise, and they 
may grow until they require earthing. This is 
done to secure a covering for the young tubers, 
and it should be recollected that they must 
never be exposed, for they would be anything 
but eatable; indeed, the exposed part would be 
green, which would make them none the 
worse for seed, but spoil them for every thing 
else. Such is the way we should plant whole 
tubers. Now for the cut sets. The time to cut 
a Potato is when it is dry, that is to say, at its 
dryest period, before there is the slightest in- 
dication of swelling at the eye, and to this one 
point everybody who has had the slightest 
difficulty with their Potato crop should give 
marked attention. When cut they should be 
spread abroad to dry, and be constantly turned 
to prevent mould or dampness. Sets should 
never be cut too small. When once dried, 
sets will keep a long time, but they must be 
kept dry : they are much more susceptible 
of damp and mouldiness. We have known 
people to cut them in the 'autumn, and they 
have kept them on a dry floor, occasionally 
taking a birch broom and sweeping them from 
one part of the floor to the other, with a view 
of removing any indication of mouldiness, 
preventing them from heating, and examining 
them a little. We never knew them to have a 
failure ; but we should never cut them, if we 
could get proper sized sets without cutting. As 
the planting time approaches, they must be 
the more frequently disturbed, because they 
are the more inclined to heat, and that hastens 
the germinating, which never should take 
place till they are in the ground ; this should 
be without dibbling if possible ; and in large 
crops nothing is better than ploughing furrows 
six inches below the surface, and letting some 
one follow the plough and drop the sets in at 
the proper distances. When the plough goes- 
over it again the sets are covered. We speak 
of field culture in the common way. In this 
case the earthing up is done with the plough, 
though some prefer hand labour. The crops, 
so far, whether those from whole sets or those 
from cut sets, will be in a fair way to do well. 
But there are yet many other ways of planting, 
particularly in gardens. For field culture 
upon a large scale there are but few profitable 
modes. It is not long since Robert Arthur of 
Edinburgh published a work, in which he 
affected to solve the problem, as he called it, of 
the Potato, and inform us of the cause of 
disease. It was before the appearance of the 
