OF SCOTLAND.
577
to be spread in the preceding autumn, or very early in spring,that it may incorporate with the soil, before it is ploughedin ; and even on stubble land this practice is deemed advan-\ tageous.
6. Lime is considered as unfavourable to the cultivation ofpotatoes; and it is alleged that its bad effects continue four-teen or even twenty years. One of these injurious effects,and the only one mentioned by the reverend author, is, thatpotatoes, on recently limed land, are almost, always scabbed,though the produce may be large.
7. The sets for seed ought to be pretty large, and shouldbe kept a week or two, after they are cut, before planting.This is peculiarly advantageous in wet grounds. The cutsurface becomes dry and shrivelled, and as if covered by atough skin, which prevents the sets from rotting, and tendsto make them vegetate quickly.
8. When frequently repeated, or oftencr than once in se-ven years, on the same ground, potatoes are found to be avery scourging crop. If once every two years, they soon re-duce the soil to a caput mortuum.
9. A very productive crop of early potatoes may be raisedand dug up before the middle of July. And turnips, or greens,may be sown as a second crop in the same season, after havingrealized a clear profit of ten or twelve pounds an acre fromthe potatoe crop. This system is common about Aberdeen.
10. In gardens, the stocks or stems and roots of greensand cabbages, laid regularly in the bottoms of the drills, areone of the best manures for potatoes; both enriching theground, and keeping the soil open, by which the shoots orFunning roots of the potatoes have room to spread.
§ 2. Of raising potatoesfrom seed .—The following circum-stances respecting the mode of raising potatoes from seed,have been thought worthy of being inserted, as extracted fromthe Statistical Account of the parish of Kinloch in Perthshire*.
* Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xvii, p. 713.
2 o
VOI.., I.