THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, January 19, 1858. 
249 
year by year as you find you arc enabled to work to profit. 
You must remember that the period of cultivating the early 
Potato is very limited, and is by no means as extensive as 
that of the late varieties. Indeed, from eight to ten weeks is 
the usual time from the period of setting to lifting. 
But, to return to the preparation of the soil. Select a dry 
sandy loam; and, supposing it to be a corn-stubble, you 
should cart your manure on to the land in February. It the 
field be pasture or meadow-land, it would be better to take a 
crop of Oats from it the first year; or the field must be 
trenched, and the sod turned down on its face to the bottom 
of the trench. 
Short , well-decomposed horse and cow manure should be 
spread on the land to the amount of thirty tons per acre. 
Long manure will not answer ; for it does not work as soon, 
and, moreover, drags and impedes both plough and spade. 
The manure, when spread, must be ploughed down when the 
land is dry. If the land is not dry, you must wait till it is : 
in this case, let the manure remain in the heaps in which it 
has been set out from the cart until the land is in a proper 
state. It is the general practice to spread the manure just 
before the plough—and a very good practice it is—to prevent 
waste and loss of ammonia, &c. You had better do nothing 
than attempt to prepare the land in a wet state, you would 
only be defeating your own object. It is a matter of greater 
importance than is generally considered, not to meddle with 
it until it is dry. 
If you first plough the land in a wet state, it will take much 
longer time to dry, and to get it into proper condition, than if 
i it had been left alone. The state of perfection which you 
; should endeavour to attain is to make the land as dry and as 
free as oatmeal. After the manure is ploughed down, say in 
February, the land remains in that state till the end of March, 
or the beginning of April—the second week in April being 
j considered the best period ; for if you set sooner, your crop is 
, liable to suffer from the early-spring frosts; and if you set later, 
your crop will come in too late for the early market. 
You recommence operations, then, by harrowing the land 
! that was left in furrows, then plough it again—always select- 
: ing a dry time—and harrow ; and should it not then be 
> reduced to a fine state of tilth, you must plough it again; 
but do not harrow the last time previous to setting, as it is 
requisite the land should be left in as light condition as 
possible. 
Supposing, then, it is your intention to adopt spade lius- 
| bandry (which we believe to be preferable), when the land is 
thus prepared, the labourer must be provided with a suitable 
implement in the way of a spade—we do not mean a common 
square garden-spade: but one, to save further description, of 
this shape and size {see cut ). A narrower implement woidd not 
answer the purpose ; for the object is to stir the whole of the 
ground. And if two or more labourers are employed, care 
must be taken that all be provided with spades of equal 
width; for should one spade be wider than another, it will 
follow that there will be a greater width between some rows 
than others—a consequence which, at the time of moulding 
i up, woidd be attended with inconvenience. 
{To be continued .) 
THE “ CHINA ” RABBIT. 
This very pretty and curious variety, for such I conceive 
it to be, of the fancy Rabbit, is generally supposed to have 
been brought from China, or the Himalayan Mountains; hence 
we sometimes hear it spoken of as the “Himalayan” Rabbit. 
By some fanciers it is considered to be of African descent, 
and by others merely the result of a cross ; but, for my part, 
I believe it to be a distinct variety. I have known those 
who have bred many generations of them ; and, as they have 
invariably produced young resembling themselves in every 
point, I take this very convincing proof as the ground of my 
belief. A gentleman, writing in The Cottage Gardener, 
of June 2nd, 1857, says that he bred some from “Silver 
Sprigs.” I do not deny for one moment the possibility of 
such a fact; but this I do think, that if the breed we recog¬ 
nise as “ Himalayas ” were thus produced, we should fre¬ 
quently be having foul or irregularly-marked young ones in 
our litters. The pure strain should always be white in colour, 
with dark extremities and smut; and a dingy fawn seems to 
be more frequently met with as the colour of the extremities 
than any other. The ears are carried erect, as in the common 
Rabbit, with which this variety also corresponds in size, 
general conformation, and habit. I have never seen a speci¬ 
men of the pure breed that did not answer to this description, 
and I have seen many, although I have never bred them 
myself.— Percy Boulton. 
HR. JOHN EORBES E01 r LE. 
Science has sustained a loss in the death of Dr. Royle, 
whicli took place at his residence, Heathfield Lodge, Acton, 
Middlesex, on Saturday, the 2nd inst. He had been for 
many years in ill-health ; but his death was sudden at last. 
Dr. Royle was educated in London for the medical profession; 
and was a pupil of the late Dr. Anthony Todd Thomson, 
from whom he seems to have acquired that taste for the 
.. — 
