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Of potatoes we have tried many varieties this year. Bark- 
ham’s Walnut-leaved Kidney we do not find better than 
the old variety of that name ; but it is as good, and like 
it to be grown for the earliest crop. Planted on the 21st 
of February the tubers were ready for boiling early in 
July. Eylott's Flour Ball is a good potato. Planted 
February 21st it was ready for taking up in the first 
week of August; but is not an abundant bearer. Mar¬ 
tin's Farit/ Seedling and the Bed Ash-leaved Kidney 
planted February 21st, were taken up quite ripe on the 
5th of August; they are two of the best flavoured, 
mealy, and most productive varieties we have ever 
grown. The Martin’s Early Seedling we especially re¬ 
commend to the attention of our readers. Every plant 
we grew of them produced from fifteen to twenty-five 
potatoes fit for boiling ; and a gentleman near us 
actually had forty-jive tubers fit for kitchen use, besides 
small ones, from one plant. 
We will take tliis opportunity to observe, that all our 
potatoes were stored perfectly ripe by the 9th of this 
month; and though the quantity grown is but small 
(about twelve bushels), yet they afford us abundant 
evidence that they can be grown so little influenced by 
murrain, that if we were not sedulously searching for 
its appearance, the disease would pass unnoticed. There 
were not fifty diseased tubers accompanied those twelve 
bushels ; and with but five exceptions not one of the 
diseased ones weighed more than an ounce. So remark¬ 
able was this that the gardener who took up the crop 
observed—“There are none but little ones diseased.” 
The deduction we draw from this year's, and many pre¬ 
vious years’ experience, is that the disease may he alto¬ 
gether avoided hy early planting early varieties. 
We planted Ash-leaved Kidneys last November, and 
notwithstanding the severe winter that followed, we did 
not lose a single set. We only.grew about three bushels 
of them, and when they were taken up on the 9tli inst., 
not a dozen tubers were diseased, although the leaves 
were as ulcerated and as covered with parasitical fungi 
as any specimens we ever examined. Let no one suppose 
that we delayed designedly planting any of our potatoes 
until February. The delay in planting the new varieties 
named arose solely from our not receiving the seed until 
then. 
We thus early record again our confirmed conviction 
in favour of early planting, and early varieties, because 
we would beg of every one of our readers to make 
arrangements for trying the experiment. A cry is up 
again that there is no dependence upon the potato as a 
store crop, and so successful has been the cry, and so 
alarmed have the cottage cultivators of Hampshire 
become, that the market is glutted with fine samples, at 
eighteenpence per bushel. These, for the most part, 
have been taken up before ripe ; and then, if they do not 
keep well, they will be quoted in confirmation of the 
despair-cry—“ the potatoes are again all going!” That 
cry we firmly believe to be unfounded and unjustifiable; 
and even if the late-ripening and late-planted kinds 
should fail, yet we are well aware, not only from obser¬ 
vation but from information furnished by others, that 
[August 22. 
the breadth of early-planted and of early varieties is so 
unusually great, that it will more than supply the possible 
failure. To all our readers we say— store your potatoes 
in a dry cool shed in alternate layers with dry earth or 
cinder ashes, and do not fear the result. 
Since the above was written we have been favoured 
with the following from Mr. Weaver, gardener to the 
Warden of Winchester College. We are sorry to find 
that some of his potatoes have been destroyed by the 
disease; but we think if they bad been stored in earth 
or coal ashes, the result would have been otherwise. 
“ My opinion about the potato disease is just the same as 
at first. The low confined situation suffers first and most; 
also the potato that makes the greatest bulk of haulm suffers 
much more than the less stemmy kinds. This I have every 
year found to be the case since the appearance of the dis¬ 
ease. This very season the potatoes in a quarter of the 
lower part of our garden began to go off about the last week 
in July, whilst the same kind at the upper part of the same 
garden were looking all well. This first quarter was planted 
with a favourite kind, called Looker's Oxonian , a very prolific 
and early sort, but stemmy; therefore, it suffered so much 
the more from having been planted in this lower part of the 
garden. They were taken up the last week in July, and 
there did not appear much the matter with the tubers at the 
time of taking up, but since that time half are gone off. The 
diseased appearance of the stems progressing gradually up 
the garden, the second week in August we determined to 
take all up, beginning at the lower quarters first. 
The next quarter bore Herefordshire Early Purples. 
These were a little touched in the haulm, but we scarcely 
found a diseased tuber; crop large and fine. This is not 
a stemmy kind, therefore moisture did not hang about it as 
in the first case. 
On the next quarter were York Regents. This quarter is 
situated about the middle of the garden, but lies rather low. 
The York Eegent is a very stemmy kind, and its stems were 
going off fast; but on taking up the crop we did not find 
many of the tubers faulty, except where we came to a root 
that seemed dead ripe ; that is, where the stems were dead, 
and there nearly the whole of the tubers were diseased ; but 
where the stems were strong and green, no diseased tubers 
appeared. These three quarters were planted in the autumn. 
The fourth quarter, which reached the top of the garden 
in the same line, was planted with Forty folds, which is not 
a stemmy kind. They were planted in February. There 
were slight appearances of disease in the steins, but there 
were very few diseased tubers. Two other large quarters of 
York Reyents, also planted in February, at the top of the 
garden, were very stemmy and beginning to go off. In 
taking them up we found scarcely any diseased tubers, and 
all pretty well ripened, and looldug very well up to the present 
time. They were taken up on the 7th and 8tli of August." 
THE ERUIT-GARDEN. 
Vines. —We must now offer a little of what may be 
termed autumn advice to the amateur or cottager, lor 
dark days are at hand, and every means must be taken 
to get both the fruit and the wood for the future year's 
crop perfected, or what gardeners term ripened; a term 
which when applied to the wood, lias a very different 
signification from its usual application to the fruit. 
We will commence with the 
Greenhouse Vines; supposing, what is very com¬ 
monly the case, vines in a house appropriated to the 
culture and display of exotics in general. Grapes here 
will, for the most part, be turning colour or already 
ripe. At this period, then, it will be necessary to ex¬ 
amine carefully if any waste or useless spray can be 
dispensed with; for although such is useful in its day 
as promoting root-action, and, by consequence, a liberal 
circulation of sap, yet in our dull clime the action of 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
