618 Cultivation of Arable Land.—Potatoes.

planting good crops are often produced; but on the poor and thin forts of foil it is a mode that can feldom be attempted with fuccefs. It is perhaps the beft adapted to fuch lands as are inclined to the retention of moifture, as in fuch the largenefs of the trenches has the effeét of removing the injuries arif- ing from the ftagnation of water about the roots of the plants. This is gene- rally termed the /azy-bed method of planting.

Where the fhoots of the potatoes are made ufe of as fets, it has been advifed to place them in half-drills, or fuch as are made by throwing the earth off on® one fide only, which may be formed by the fpade, or even by a very fmall plough contrived for the purpofe, at the diftance of eight or ten inches from each other, after being carefully picked from off the potatoes, and feven or eight inches apart in the rows, the root of the fhoot being put downwards. ‘This may be performed by children. A fmall proportion of dung is then to be laid thinly over them, and the earth from the fides of the drills lightly drawn over them, fo as to guard them againft any froft that may happen. When they have thrown out leaves, and are about four inches above the ground, an- other covering is to be given, fo as to leave about two inches above the furface; and as they advance in growth, continue to cover them in this manner, till the earth between the ridges raifes the drills at leaft twelve or fourteen inches in height. Shoots that are employed in this way fhould be ftrong and vigorous, about fix inches in length, and planted while frefh and in a ftate of perfeé& growth. The fhoots may be preferved for planting by taking them off from ithe potatoes, either all at once or occafionally as they are ufed, without bruif ing, and laying them croffways upon each other, a light covering of earth being placed over them. In this way they may be kept a month or fix weeks till the land is ready for their reception*.

It has likewife been fuggefted, that crops of this fort may be raifed by tranf- planting fuch young plants as have come up by chance on grounds that have had potatoes, or been prepared for the purpofe in beds of rich earth and dung.

And it is indeed afferted to have been found by experiments attentively made, that planting the feed on moderate-fized dunghills for about three weeks before they are put into the ground, renders them forwarder by five or fix weeks than in the ordinary manner, and that the heat afforded by the dung feems to communicate a healthy vigor to the plants that is maintained-_— the whole of their after-crowth ft.

* Commercial and Agricultural Magazine, vol. VI. + Farmer’s Magazine, vol. Ill. p. 142.