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EXTRACTS — HORTICULTURE. 
Culture of Potatoes. —A freqiient change of seed is necessary. Any sort 
may be continued fertile and profitable by removing them from one county to 
another every fourth or fifth year, or by raising them alternately on very different 
descriptions of soil. In the cultivation of this useful plant, it appears, from 
many experiments, that it requires ample space. In field culture, placing the 
sets of the strong growing kinds in every third furrow, and those of the dwarfer 
sorts in every second, are eligible distances. There are different opinions held 
respecting the necessity of earthing up potatoes. On very thin soils, however, 
it is absolutely necessary. On deeply ploughed, or trenched ground, earthing- 
up the stems is certainly less necessary; because as the under-ground runners, 
which produce the tubers, are inclined to extend themselves as deeply in the soil 
as the roots, they do not seem to require any additional depth of earth imme¬ 
diately over them. But this depends entirely upon the open porousness of the 
soil, and the manner of growth of some of the kinds. Plucking off the flowers 
increases the size and number of tubers. It is founded on a law of nature, dis¬ 
posing a plant, constituted to produce at the same time both seeds and tubers, 
to yield either one or the other more abundantly, according as either is destroyed. 
If tubers be not allowed to form, many flowers and apples will be the consequence; 
and if the flowers be destroyed as soon as they appear, the tubers will be in¬ 
creased. It is bad management to plant the refuse, or odds and ends of last 
year’s crop, for the sets of this. If potatoes are planted at all they should be 
planted well.— Br. Far. Mag. 
Culture of Potatoes. —No variety should ever be cultivated which use¬ 
lessly expends itself in the production of seeds, or of full-grown blossoms, unless 
it possesses some valuable redeeming qualities. The distance of the intervals 
between the rows should be wholly regulated by the length required by the stems 
in each peculiar situation and soil. If the utmost length required by the stems 
be four feet, let the intervals between the rows be four feet also; and if the 
variety be of dwarfish habits, and its longest stems do not exceed two feet, inter¬ 
vals of two feet will be sufficient. The rows should be made from North to South 
that the mid-day sun may be permitted fully to shine between them, for every 
particle of living matter found in the tuberous root of the potatoe plant, has been 
generated into leaves, which act only when exposed to light, and has descended 
beneath the soil. Each set should weigh at least six ounces, and they should 
never be placed at greater distances from each other than six inches from centre 
to centre, and a preference should be given to viholc potatoes, when such can be 
obtained. If the growth of the plant be very dwarfish, four inches between the 
set, from centre to centre, will be preferable ; and if the form of the potatoe be 
long or kidney-shaped, a good deal of advantage will be gained by placing them 
upon their ends, that end which joined the parent plant being placed downwards. 
The largest produce will generally be obtained from varieties of rather early 
habits, and rather low stature, there being in very tall plants much time neces¬ 
sarily lost in carrying the nutriment absorbed from the soil, up into the leaves, 
and down in the state of living sap to the tuber. Varieties which have strong 
stems and erect form, are to be preferred, because such are least subject to fall 
upon, and shade the foliage of each other. It is much more advantageous to in¬ 
corporate the manure with the soil by means of a spade or plough, than to put 
it in with the sets; for in the latter case, a large majority of the roots, during 
the summer and autumn, do not derive advantage from it. Early planting is, 
