POTATO. 
89 
acquire considerable age before they begin to generate tubers; but for an 
early crop, he recommends the largest tubers; and he has found, that these 
not only afford very strong plants, but also such as readily recover when in¬ 
jured by frost; for, being fed by a copious reservoir beneath the soil, a re¬ 
production of vigorous stems and foliage soon takes place, when those first 
produced are destroyed by frost or other cause. He adds, “ When the planter 
is anxious to obtain a crop within the least possible time, he will find the 
position, in whicl the tubers are placed to vegetate, by no means a point of 
indifference ; for these, being shoots or branches which have grown thick 
instead of elongating, retain the disposition of branches to propel the sap 
to their leading buds, or points most distant from the stems of the plants of 
which they once formed parts If the tubers be placed with their leading 
buds upwards, a few very strong and very early shoots will spring from 
them ; but if their position be reversed, many weaker and later shoots will 
be produced ; and not only the earliness, but the quality of the produce ? in 
size, will be much affected. 77 -— Hort. Trans, iv, p. 448. 
JVPMahon advises to cut seed potatoes “a week before planting, in order 
that the wounds should have time to form a dry crust; for, if planted im¬ 
mediately after being cut, they imbibe too much moisture, many of them 
rot, and the rest are greatly weakened thereby. 7 ’ Some advise to wet seed 
potatoes, and roll them in pulverized plaster of Paris, immediately before 
planting. 
From an experiment made by a person in the employ of the Hon. Josiah 
Quincy, the particulars of which are given in Mass. Jtgr. Repos, vol. v, p. 64, 
it appears that the product of certain rows, planted with whole potatoes, ex¬ 
ceeded an equal extent of adjoining rows more than one third. A writer foi 
the N. E. Farmer , vol. i, p. 330, gives an experiment, which tends to the 
conclusion that potatoes planted whole produce more than those which are 
cut. The experiments of most cultivators, however, are in favor of cutting. 
Dr. Cooper, in the last Philadelphia edition of Willidds Domestic Encyclopedia^ 
says, “The best mode [with regard to seed potatoes] appears to be this:— 
Choose your potatoes for planting of a moderate size, rather large than small, 
for there is no good reason to be assigned for breeding from diminutive 
parents; cut your potatoes into sets, two eyes to a set; throw away, with¬ 
out hesitation, into the hog-trough all the inferior and diminutive eyes, 
choosing your sets from the middle of the potato; do not cut the potato dow 7 ri 
the middle. 77 Loudon observes, u In preparing the sets of potatoes, some 
cultivators recommend large sets, others small potatoes entire. Others, on 
the ground of experience, are equally strenuous in support of small cuttings., 
sprouts, shoots, or even only the eyes or buds. With all these different sorts 
of sets, good crops are stated to have been raised, though tolerable-sized cut¬ 
tings of pretty large potatoes, with two or three good eyes or buds in each, 
are probably to be preferred. A very slight exercise of common sense 
