612 Cultivation of Arable Land.—Potatoes,

employed with advantage, efpecially as the refult of experiment has fhewn that fuch whole potatoes as are moderate in fize, and fuch cuttings as are not too large, are generally capable of producing the beft and moft abundant crops*,

It is neceffary, however, where cuttings are made ufe of, to take care that they contain a fufficient proportion of matter about the eyes or root-buds, to afford nourifhment and{upport to the plant during the procefs of germination, and until it be perfeétly eftablifhed in the foil.

On the principle of faving feed in fcarce and dear feafons, it has been advifed by fome to have recourfe to the fhoots+, and, by others f, to the eyes only; but the ufe of thefe, except under fuch circumftances, is liable to many objections. Where the fhoots are employed, the crops are found to be confiderably more backward in becoming ripe, confequently more expofed to the danger of cold winds and frofts about the period of their being taken up; befides, from their being more tender than fets taken from the cuttings of potatoes, they cannot be put into the ground at fo early a period. But the moft material objeétien is, in many of the plants being fo weak and imperfeét in their growth, as to afford little or no produce. Where the plough is made ufe of in planting them, there may likewife be danger of their being injured by the trampling of the horfes, except great care be taken to prevent it.

Where the eye or root-bud of the potatoe is employed as feed, it is ufually cut out of it by a feoop or implement contrived for the purpofe, to the thick- nefs of about half a crown. But though this mode of fets is faid to have been made ufe of with fuccefs by fome cultivators, it is probably liable to moft of the inconveniences that attend the fetting of fhoots.

Good crops are, however, afferted to have been obtained in this way by difs ferent cultivators, in particular defcriptions of foil; but others of equal credit affure us, that it is but in very few inftances, as where the foil is peculiarly adapted to potatoe crops, that fets of this kind fucceed in any tolerable man ner. It was found by an intelligent agricultor, in making an experiment with f{cooped fets, and fuch as were prepared by cutting with a knife, in the ordi- nary way, from potatoes of the fame kind, that on nine of the beft-looking fets of each kind being planted on the fame land, in alternate drills, the cuttings came up and proceeded in their growth without fuftaining the leaft injury; while the fcooped fets, though they grew, continued in a perfeétly dwarfifh ftate when

* Bath Papers, vol. IX.+ Maunfell, in TranfaCtions of Dublin Society, vol. II. 1799+ } Stewart, in Ibid.