00 
AMERICAN KITCHEN GARDENER 
might have saved the advocates of shoots, scooped-out eyes, &c., their ex¬ 
periments and arguments, it being evident, as Brown has observed, to every 
one that has any practical knowledge of the nature of vegetables, that the 
strength of the stem in the outset depends, in direct proportion, upon the 
vigor and power of the set. The set, therefore, ought to be large, rarely 
smaller than the fourth part of the potato, and if the roof is of small size, 
one half of the potato may be profitably used. At all events, rather err in 
giving over-large sets, than in making them too small; because, by the first 
error, no great loss can be sustained, whereas, by the other, a feeble and late 
crop may be the consequence.” Deane says, “ The shooting parts exist in 
a potato in the form of a tree, of which the stock is at the but or root-end" 
I therefore take care to cut athwart those parts as little as possible ; though 
they will grow any way, the greater length of shooting stem there is in a 
set, the more strong and vigorous will be its growth at first.” 
Quantity of sets. —Abercrombie directs, for a plot of the early and secondary 
crops , eight feet wide by sixteen in length, planted in rows, fifteen inches 
asunder by nine inches in the row, a quarter of a peck of roots or cuttings. 
For full-timed and main crops. a compartment, twelve feet wide by thirty- 
two in length, planted in rows two feet distant, half a peck. For field culti¬ 
vation. English writers say that it requires twenty bushels and a half to 
plant an acre with cut potatoes, and thirty-seven bushels and a quarter of 
whole potatoes 
Soil. —“The soil,” says Loudon, <4 in which the potato thrives best, is a 
light loam, neither too dry nor too moist, but if rich, so much the better. 
They may, however, be grown well on many other sorts of land, especially 
those of the mossy, moory, and other similar kinds where they are free 
from stagnant moisture. The best flavored potatoes are almost always pro¬ 
duced from a newly broken-up pasture-ground, not manured, or from any 
new soil, as the site of a grubbed-up copse or hedge, or the site of old build¬ 
ings or roads. The best climate for the potato is one. rather moist than dry, 
and temperate or cool rather than hot. Hence the excellence of the Irish 
potatoes, which grow in a dry, loamy, calcareous soil, and moist and tempe¬ 
rate climate; and hence, also, the inferiority of the potatoes of France, 
Spain, Italy, and even Germany. In short, the pQtato is grown no where 
in the world to the same degree of perfection as in Ireland and Lancashire, 
and not even in the south of England, so well as in Scotland and the north 
and western counties; all which is, in our opinion, clearly attributable to 
he climate.” 
Although a light loam is a proper soil for the potato in a cool and moist 
climate, a strong and heavy loam is most suitable for the same root in a dry 
and hot climate. In a paper read before the New r York Horticultural Society, 
in 1823, by William Wilson, an experienced horticulturist, are the following 
remarks on this subject:—“ Those soils which prove the very bane of the 
