88 
AMERICAN KITCHEN GARDENER. 
Pickering, contained in a pamphlet published by the Essex Agricultural So¬ 
ciety, Mass.; this society having awarded premiums for the best potatoes 
raised irom the seed. 
1. u Seeing the seeds in the same hall will produce various sorts of pota¬ 
toes, it will be indispensably necessary, that each young plant grow at the 
distance of eight or ten inches apart. 
2. ‘ In autumn, or as soon as the vines or stems of the plants die, and the 
young potatoes are dug up, those of each plant are to be saved by them¬ 
selves, and it will be easy to put each sort in a separate paper bag. Those 
potatoes will be very small, perhaps from the size of a pigeon’s down to a 
sparrow’s egg. 
3. “ In the ensuing spring, the potatoes of each sort, that is, the potatoes 
of each bag, must be planted by themselves, and, if not in distinct row’s, 
then stakes, driven into the ground, should mark the divisions of the several 
sorts in the same row’s, leaving a space of about tw’O feet between one sort 
and another, to guard against any mixture. 
4. u In the time for harvesting them in the second year, the potatoes [if 
grown in a good soil] wall be large enough to be boiled, to ascertain their 
quality. Each sort must be tried by itself. Such as are watery, and are 
ill-flavored, may be at once thrown aside, for the use of live stock. Every 
other sort, so valuable as to be thought w’orth cultivating, must be kept un¬ 
mixed, by putting each kind in a separate bag or cask.”— N. E. Farmer , 
vol. vi y p. 286. 
The modes of propagating by layers, cuttings of the vines, suckers, 
sprouts, &c., are rather curious than useful, and are therefore here omitted, 
but may be seen in detail in the Encyc. of Gard. p. 620. 
By portions of the tubers [or cuttings of the roots].— a In making the sets 
or sections, reject the extreme or watery end of the tuber, as apt to run too 
much to haulm [vine], and having the eyes small, and in a cluster; reject 
also the root, or dry end, as more likely to be tardy in growth, and produce 
the curl. Then divide the middle of the potato, so as to have not more than 
one good eye in each set. When the potato-scoop [an instrument for dig¬ 
ging out the eyes of potat s] is used, take care to apply it so as the eye or 
hud may be in the center >f each set, which this instrument produces, of a 
semi-globular form. The larger the portion of tuber left to each eye, so 
much the greater will be the progress of the young plants.”— Loudon. 
By some experiments which w 7 ere made by J. Whitlaw, Esq., and given 
in detail in the N. E. Farmer , vol. i, p. 53, and vol. iv, p. 314, these tw T oim¬ 
portant facts were made apparent: 1st. Large potatoes are much better for 
seed the.n small ones. 2d. It is best to cut off the but and top-ends from 
each potato, and cut the middle pieces into quarters, before planting Knight, 
the famous English horticulturist, has found, that, for a late crop, small sets 
[seed potatoes] may be used ; because the plants of the late varieties always 
