September 1 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
plenty of bread; but he that followetli after vain persons 
shall have poverty enough. A faithful man shall abound 
with blessings; but he that maketh haste to be rich shall 
not be innocent.” 
CULTURE OE A ROOD OF GROUND. 
SEPTEMBER. 
In my notes for August, I stated that my Potato crop was 
looking very luxuriant, and promised to be an abundant 
crop. Three days after I had written the above article, I 
1 noticed they began to show symptoms of the disease, and 
! on examining them closely, I found it was spreading rapidly; 
i and, from inquiries that I made in the neighbourhood, I 
| soon learnt that it was becoming very general. From obser- 
i vations that I made, it appeared to be as virulent and rapid 
in its progress as it was the first year it commenced. As 
the disease cannot be prevented, I shall endeavour to give 
a description how they may be saved from being entirely 
lost, by making Hour, or arrow-root from them. 
In 1845, the first year of the disease attacking the Potato, 
I had a considerable portion of my ground under crop with 
them. As soon as the disease made its appearance, I 
adopted the plan of my neighbours, in taking them up, 
which they said would prevent the disease getffug to the 
tubers. I, therefore, took them up as quickly as 1 possibly 
could, and put them in heaps, with the intention of > jeering 
them with earth, to preserve them from frost duriig the 
winter; but I thought I would not be too hasty in doii g so. 
I therefore covered them with some straw lor a few da^s, to 
keep the air and rain from them; a tew days afterwards I 
had occasion to uncover them, to get some for sale, and, to 
my astonishment, they were decaying rapidly, although they 
appeared, when I took them up, to be perfectly sound ; and, 
with the exception of my present crop this season, they were 
the finest Potatoes, in size, that I have ever grown. As 
they were going so fast, I was anxious, it possible, to pre¬ 
vent the entire loss. Having noticed, in that excellent 
work, “ British Husbandry,” some account of making potato- 
flour, I was determined to try the experiment, and I am 
happy to say I was well rewarded for my pains, for had I 
not resolved upon this plan, they would in a very short time, 
have been a complete heap of manure. 
The following, as near as I can recollect, is the way I 
went to work:—The process (by hand) is by grating the 
potato, on a bread-grater, into a pulp. This plan being very 
slow and tedious, I got a piece of block-tin, at the tinman s, 
about a foot square, pierced with holes, and fixed it on the 
centre of a small pair of brewing-tongs I bad by me, I 
then set one end of these tongs into a tub, and rested the 
other end, when sitting, against my chest, and grated the 
potatoes into the tub. After having grated as many as the 
tub would hold, I had another tub half-filled with water, and 
a fine hair sieve, which I placed in the water with one hand, 
and with the other put the pulp into the sieve, not too much 
at a time, and kept stirring it till all the flour was washed out, 
which was in two or three minutes, and was settled at the 
bottom of the tub like sand. I continued in this way to wash 
all the pulp that I had grated, and as I washed it, I threw it 
aside for manure. In order to get the flour perfectly clean 
and white, it must pass through several washings in clean 
j water, by stirring it with the hand. As soon as the water 
i remains perfectly free from any colour or sediments, it will 
I be sufficiently washed. It must then be spread thinly on 
I clean cloths, and laid in the sun till it becomes perfectly 
i dry; great caution is necessary in drying it. If it were, dried 
I too quick before the fire, or in an oven, it would, bake into a 
hard cake, and would be entirely spoiled, as it would not 
I keep. When quite dry, it will be as white as snow, and will 
keep for several years ; in proof of which, we have a small 
' quantity by us made at the above time, and, to appearance, it 
! will not be known from the so-called arrow-root of the shops. 
In this way we made more than fifty-six pounds of flour, 
which, if we had not done, the potatoes would have been 
entirely lost to us, excepting for manure. It proved very 
valuable to us for various purposes; such as mixing a portion 
with wheaten flour for making bread, or mixing with boiling- 
water ; or with milk, sweetened with sugar or treacle, it is 
427 ! 
delicious. It may be said to be a tedious process, but the 
value of the flour will well compensate for the trouble. 
Although the potatoes were in a very forward state of 
decay, the flour was not the least affected by it. 
In the year 1848, when I found my potatoes were decay¬ 
ing, I cooked them to feed my pigs with, mashing them with 
meal, Ac., which I found to be excellent for fattening; the 
particulars of which I have given in my little work on pig j 
feeding, &c. But the decay being so rapid this present 
season, I dare not venture to use them for that purpose. At 
the present, we are using some of them that are not too far i 
gone, to feed our fowls with, by boiling them, and mash 
them with pollard and barley-meal, which they appear to do i 
well with, and are very fond of them. . | 
In 1845, a person in this neighbourhood was simple 
enough to put his potatoes in a heap, or clamp, and cover 
them with straw and earth, to keep till the spring, as he 
said they would then be worth 30s. a sack; and although 
they showed symptoms of decay when he took them up, he 
was sure, by keeping them from the air, they would go no 
further. The consequence was, when he opened the heap 
in the spring they were a complete heap of manure. 
Where a portion of the rood of ground has been 
occupied with wheat, no time should be lost, after the crop 
has been cleared off, in giving it a thorough digging and ! 
cleaning, and if any portion of it be required for early i 
spring Cabbages it must be well manured. I have found I 
the present month to be the best time for solving Brum \ 
Cattle Cabbage seed, the plants to remain on the beds till 
the spring, and to he set out in May where they are in¬ 
tended to stand. In this way they will grow to a much j 
larger size then when the seed is sown in the month of 
March, as they can be transplanted a month earlier. I have 
grown Cabbages from the seed sown at this time that have J 
weighed as much as 35 lbs. each. 
Winter Beans have of late been grown to a considerable | 
extent in this part of the country (Suffolk), and the crops ; 
are, generally, more abundant than those sown in the spring. 
If a portion of the wheat ground be desired for this crop, 
the latter part of this month is the proper time to put them 
in. The distance I dibble my Beans in is sixteen inches, 
from row to row, and six inches apart in the rows, which I 
find quite close enough on good land, and the produce 
more abundant than it would be if the rows were closer, 
particularly with the winter Beans, as they grow more 
luxuriantly than those sown in the spring. 
No time must be lost in digging and cleaning the land as 
it becomes vacant, that it may be fit to receive future crops. 
The way in which I sow my Wheat, preparing the land, Ac., 
I shall give in my notes for next month, that being the time j 
I always put mine in. 
In The Cottage Gardener of June 9th, I stated that 
our Shanghae Pullet (hatched the middle of July, 1852) had 
produced us sixty living chickens, which we have reared, 
and up to the present time, August 16th, that I am now 
wilting, we have hatched altogether from her eggs, one 
hundred and eleven chickens, which are all living, and 
strong, healthy birds, and she is now sitting on her last 
batch of thirteen eggs. How we manage our fowls, in 
hatching, rearing, feeding, Am., I shall give in a future 
paper.— John Sillett. 
POULTRY VARIETIES. 
Having observed, in the review of the London Summer 
Poultry Show, in The Cottage Gardener of the 5tli I 
ultimo, a statement, that the Jerusalem and Russian (or more j 
properly Bengal ) fowls, exhibited by me there, appeared to j 
be cross-bred birds ; I must beg leave to correct this error, 
having, as I consider, the very best proofs of their being j 
both as pure and distinct breeds as any of the more j 
generally known sorts; viz.—that for three generations every 
chick has appeared in colour, shape, and general character¬ 
istics, precisely like the parents; and I have, at this moment, 
a flock of thirty-eight Russian or Bengal fowls, and twenty- 
six Jerusalem , old and young, all bearing every mark of 
purity of race; in fact, all alike. 
The Jerusalem were brought from the Holy Land, some | 
