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FURTHER REMARKS ON THE POTATO. 
FURTHER REMARKS ON THE POTATO. 
BY GEO. T. DALE, WIRKSWORTH, DERBYSHIRE. 
Having promised to say something more on the Potato, I now do 
so. It has been said by a celebrated individual in the horticultural 
world, that the early potato may be planted at almost any period of the 
year, and a crop ensured. The same person maintains, that if the top 
of the plant be cut off by frost, it is of little or no consequence, as there 
always remains sufficient productive power in the potato to produce 
others. This opinion I must beg leave to controvert. For every¬ 
thing there is a season; and even granting it matters little at what 
time potatoes are planted, yet it must follow, as a matter of course, 
that if the top of the plant is cut off, it must weaken the powers of 
the same in producing tubers, as an extra effort has to be made. 
It is absolutely necessary, from the time the seed-potatoes come out 
of the ground, that they should be as much as possible at rest, to ensure 
what I should call a good crop. This is only to be done by being par¬ 
ticular as to where and how your seed is laid by for the winter. So 
tenacious is the potato as to heat, that a very low degree will immedi¬ 
ately set its powers at work. 
Much has been said with respect to setting the potato whole or cut. 
I was well acquainted with a scientific horticulturist who for twenty 
years was trying experiments on the potato. After that period,—indeed 
long before the expiration of that term,—he had come to the conclusion 
that the best crop was obtained by setting whole. Indeed, strange as 
it may appear to some, I knew an individual who, by setting a single 
potato whole, produced, by great pains in cultivation, the extraordinary 
number of seventy pecks in one season. This is a fact that I am aware 
will be disputed by many ; but all who do so, I refer to my friend, 
Mr. Stafford Wellesley, whose authority will, I imagine, be sufficient: 
indeed, I am convinced it is possible to produce more. So much for 
its productive powers, if properly managed. I should recommend early 
potatoes to be set about two inches deep, and only to be earthed up 
once slightly. With regard to the later crops, I should say, do very 
little more : allow all the sun that you. can to get to the rootlets. I 
think, three times out of four, harm is done by injudicious earthing up. 
Most early potatoes produce their tubers as near as they can to the 
surface ; indeed they often lie above the ground. Seeing this is the 
nature of the plant, why earth them up as most do, making either a 
trench for the wet to drain into and scab the potato, or exclude the 
sun from the tubers, in spite of all their efforts to get to it. The 
