In tho vegetable kingdom, hybrid plants have not the power of pro pagation by seed • but they can be rendered reproductive by budding and grafting, or by means of cuttiugs, slips, and tubers, and an original stock comparatively worthless may be highly improved by such modes of multiplication. But when a farmer possesses two or three kinds of decided excellence, he will act wisely by not encumbering his stores with too many varieties, which always occasion trouble and confusion in the field management.
In order to obtain seed, properly so called, the potato-apple, when •• perfectly ripe, should be dried, and then disengaged from its seed by rubbing with the hand. The seed should be. preserved in a dry place, in paper or cloth bags, until the beginning of March or middle of April, when it may be sown in wooden boxes or earthen pans, with a covering of less than half an inch of well pulverised earth. The vessels ought then to bo placed in hotbeds of mild heat, such as is suited to the raising of halthanly aunuals. The plants, when an inch high, should be pricked out into other vessels, and placed in a temperature some what lower than before, to inure them to the external air, to which they should be exposed after frosts have ceased. These plants should be put out in drills sixteen inches apart, and with the interval of six inches between the plants in the rows. They will produce tubers in the first year, and these may be planted in the following season in the ordinary way.
For very early crops, such as those which the ash-leaved and walnut leaved kinds' in particular yield, the most successful treatment was that practised by the late Mr. ludght, president of the London Horticultural Society, from the course of whose practice we give the following details of instruction :—Drills may be formed in a warm and sheltered situation (and in the direction of north and south) during any of the winter menthe, two feet apart, and seven or eight inches deep. Stable dung, half decomposed, should be laid in the drills and combined with the earth four inches downwards, and covered with some of the mould, which had been thrown out in forming the drills, by the rake, to within four inches of the surface. The sets uncut are then to be placed, with the crown eye uppermost, in the centre of the furrow, four inches from each other, and to be covered with only an inch of mould at first, and afterwards with an occasional quantity of sifted ashes, until the plants are so vigorous and advanced as to require the usual earthing, of which, however, very little is necessary. Mr. Knight used leaves as a
lining at the sides of the drills in the early periods, to preserve as much warmth as possible, and better to guard against the effects of frost.
This management alone will be found successful, except perhaps in very tenacious clay soil, in which the rains of winter may lodge so near the fibres of the plants as to destroy them altogether ; but de struction from this cause may easily be avoided by increasing the original depth of the furrows and loosening the bed of clay below with the spade to such a depth as will allow the water to descend from the surface, with a drain to carry it off altogether ; or by laying below some absorbent matter, such as ashes, chalk, or calcareous gravel.
The germination of the sets may be accelerated by a little manage ment previously to their being planted, by laying them on a floor, sprinkliug them with water until they bud, and then covering them with finely-sifted mould. If this be done in December or early in January, the sets, with strong shoots. may be taken up in February (with as much earth as possible adhering to them), and carefully placed in the drills prepared as directed, and covered with well-rotted leaves or earth in the same way.
To market-gardeners it is a great object to raise the earliest potatoes, considering the high price which they obtain for them, though in their waxy state they are neither wholesome nor palatable. Next in early maturity to the ash:leavcal and walnut-leaved arc the early Manly and early Champion and Fox's seedling.
The best soil for potatoes generally is that which is altogether fresh from the state of lea, or which has not long been broken up : land which has been in grass for only two or three years is easily prepared for the principal crop. It should be as deeply ploughed as possible before winter. and early in March harrowed, and thoroughly cross ploughed. After lying in this state for two or three weeks, it should again be well harrowed and very deeply ploughed twice, without bringing up any bad substratum, and it will then be fit for the recep tion of the crop.