Page:Treatise on Cultivation of the Potato.djvu/18

 think, exposed to the light during the whole season than under any other mode of culture which I have seen; and as the plants acquire a very large size early in the summer, the tubers, of even very late varieties, arrive at a state of perfect maturity early in the autumn.

Having found my crops of potatoes to be in the last three years, during which alone I have accurately adopted the mode of culture above described, much greater than they had ever previously been, as well as of excellent quality, I was led to ascertain the amount in weight which an acre of ground such as I have described, the soil of which was naturally poor and shallow, would produce. A colony of rabbits had, however, in the last year done a good deal of damage, and pheasants had eaten many of the tubers which the rabbits had exposed to view; but the remaining produce per acre exceeded five hundred and thirty-nine bushels of eighty-two pounds each,—two pounds being allowed in every bushel on account of a very small quantity of earth which adhered to them.

The preceding experiments were made with a large and productive variety of potato only; but I am much inclined to think that I have raised, and shall raise in the present year, 1828, nearly as large a produce per acre of a very well-known small early variety, the ash-leaved kidney potato. Of this variety I selected in the present spring the largest tubers which I could cause to be produced in the last year; and I have planted them nearly in contact with each other in the rows, and with intervals, on account of the shortness of their stems, of only two feet between the rows. The plants at present display an unusual degree of strength and vigour of growth, arising from the very large size (for that variety) of the planted tubers; and as large a breadth of foliage is exposed to the light by the small, as could be exposed by a large variety; and as I have always found the amount of the produce, under any given external circumstance, to be regulated by the extent of foliage which was exposed to light, I think it probable that I shall obtain as large, or very nearly as large, a crop from the small variety in the present year as I obtained from the large variety in the last. I have uniformly found that, to obtain crops of potatoes of great weight and excellence, the period of planting should never be later than the beginning of March.

March 23, 1829.—Somewhat contrary to my expectations, the