mistaken in regard to the correctness of a practice pertaining exclusively to their own avocation than are these potato-growers. Ordinarily but two eyes are left in a piece, and two pieces make a hill. Sometimes the pieces are cut so small as to leave the most of the potato for eating. Cut seed never will produce as good nor as many bushels of potatoes to any given quantity of ground as whole seed. To prove this, let any grower commence his field, for example, with a row of whole seed, and then plant every alternate row with cut seed, so that the soil and the cultivation shall be the same; make such a record, either by stakes set to each row properly inscribed or otherwise, as will prevent any mistake as to which rows were planted with the cut, and which with the uncut seed; and when the growing season is over, dig each, and measure by itself, and he will find that the uncut seed will produce the largest number of bushels on the same ground. But suppose another experiment be tried. Let any grower select large potatoes for seed and plant them whole. From this product do as before, and thus continue to do year after year, and he will find that the potatoes will increase in size, and that, just in proportion as they grow or increase in size above a fair medium, he will find his potatoes deteriorated in quality.

The experiments which established the above facts in relation to cut and uncut seed established another fact-that small but matured uncut potatoes should always be used. These planted in observance of conditions above stated, and the grower, with a fair season and fair cultivation, will always produce potatoes which, in all respects, will be of the highest attainable perfection.

HOW TO PLANT.

Unquestionably a greater yield of good potatoes may be obtained from an acre of ground by drilling the seed than by planting it in hills, as is usually done; but the labor with the hoe is greatly augmented thereby. The ground, after being well ploughed, should be deeply furrowed both ways if planted in hills. If the seed is put down deep, the hills are easier made, and the dry weather does not so readily affect the plant. The practice of crowding the rows to within three feet of each other is a bad one. The potato should not be dug up, almost literally speaking, in hoeing it. A large, flat-top hill is necessary to catch the rain, and afford plenty of room in loose dirt for the potatoes to grow in. The covering of the dropped seed may be done very rapidly and very well with the small plough.

CULTIVATION.

The first act of cultivation should be with a light drag, just as the potatoes are ready to come out of the ground. This disturbs the weeds which are already growing, and kills them. The after cultivation should be with the cultivator and hoe, keeping the ground level until the tops are grown up as high as they will grow and stand up, when the plough should be put in to assist to form the hills, and thus end the cultivation.

THE POTATO DISEASE.

The potato disease is still a mystery. There are a hundred theories, more or less, in regard to the cause of it; but not one of them can establish a real claim to reliability. But this does not matter. He who will plant whole, sound, and small potatoes, in a sandy soil, with a fertility as above stated, that will produce per acre a hundred bushels of Neshannocks, or not to exceed one hundred and fifty bushels of Peachblows, will never be troubled with potato disease.

DIGGING.

Digging and storing is full half of the labor of growing and securing a crop of potatoes. The digging is a long, tedious, laborious task. The ploughing, planting and cultivation is the easiest half of producing and caring for the crop.

Potato-diggers have been invented; but none have found their way into this potato region, which will do the work well only under the most favorable circumstances. A small plough to turn a furrow away from each side of the row, and a good hoe, and a man with a strong, active, muscular system to work it, is the most reliable arrangement as a digger yet found.

CARE OF THE CROP.

The care of the potatoes should begin with the digging. They should be picked up as fast as they are dug, not allowing them to lie on the ground several hours in the sun, as is customary. Light is very detrimental to potatoes, and strong sunlight pouring down on them will soon make its effect seriously apparent. The finest potatoes ever grown may be spoiled in a few days by exposure to the light; they may be spoiled substantially in taking them to market by the exposure incident to the present inconsiderate method of transportation. Hence the marketman who makes a sign of his potatoes in baskets about his shop-door, prepares a worthless article for his customers. Light changes the complexion of potatoes, as the observation of almost everybody will bear witness, from its normal one to green, and renders them strong to the taste and unrelishable. As soon after digging as convenient the potatoes should be stored in a dark place, and, if it be in a cellar bin, during the entire time that they lie there for the family use, or awaiting the market, they should be covered with a thin coating of sand to make the absence of light as perfect as possible.

'The denizens of our cities know nothing of the excellence of the potato. As has been shown above, the character of the seed, the soil, size, and care during storage, are absolutely essential to excellence of quality. It will be seen, therefore, that the real difference in the value of different lots of potatoes is as great as in any other article of food-as much as it is between different lots of wheat, or as it is between different specimens of any other kind of vegetables. This comparative difference in the value of potatoes is recognized now by only a few people those grown in certain localities command a higher price than others, and soon there will be an acknowledged difference in the quality and price even in the potatoes of the same locality; and when the necessary conditions are observed in the growth of the potato in all the potato-growing localities, and the facilities of transportation are so improved that they may be taken to market without impairing their quality, our city folks will relish and estimate the potato as an article of food as never before.

BOTANICAL HISTORY OF SORGHUM.

BY F. PECH, DEPARTMENT OF AGRiculture.

UNDER the name of Sorgo, several congenerous plants from the East Indies have been described from remote antiquity. Their agricultural value, fully appreciated in husbandry for the benefit of their seeds and juices, attracted the

attention of the farmer and naturalist.

Pliny the elder, who flourished in the first century, describes, in his 18th book, chap. 7, a Sorgo plant under the name of milium quod cx India in Italiam invectum nigro colore, (millet, of black color, imported from the East Indies to Italy.) That name, milium, or millet, signifies thousands, alluding to the numberless seeds produced by these plants.

Fachius, of Belgium, describes, in his History of Plants, in 1542, a plant under the name of Shorghi, which is precisely the true popular name of the Sorgo in the East Indies.

Jerome Fragus, in describing the plants of Germany, in the year 1552, gives the description of the same plants under the name of Panicum Dioscorides et Plinii, (bread millet of Dioscorides and Pliny.) Then the plant of Pliny was that of Dioscorides, the Greek, and already cultivated in Germany. Conrad Gesner, in his Hortus Germania, (German garden,) in 1591, names the same plant Sorghum. Matthioli, an Italian, in his Commentaries on Dioscorides, in 1595, describes it under the name of Milium Indicum, (Indian millet.) Lobel, a Belgian, in 1576, describes that plant as the Sorgo melica Italorum, (Sorgo, or honey of the Italians;) and, followed by Dodon, a Belgian, who, seven years later, 1583, in his Pemptades, names it melica, sive sorgum, (honey, otherwise sorgo.) This Latin name, melica, means pertaining to honey, which is the mele of the Italians, from which is derived melligo, (honeyish.) The synonyms of the last two authors are of great importance, to show that there was in Italy, besides the Indian millet, (Durra corn, sorghum vulgare,) another species which has been confounded with it, and which corresponds exactly with the Chinese sugar-cane; and if any doubt still exists, the following line from Lucian, a Roman writer, will entirely establish the fact: "Quique bibunt tenera dulces ab arundine succos," (those who drink in sucking the tender sweet stalks of canes.) See also Dod. Pemp., 4, 1, 27, and Matthioli, book 2, chap. 9. Lonicer, a German, 1589, and Gerarde, English, 1597, describe several varieties of these plants. Bester, a German, 1613, also describes it as the Milium Plinii, which plainly shows that this plant from Italy has been cultivated in Germany, Belgium, and England from the time of Pliny to the seventeenth century.

In 1623, the botanical reformer, Gasper Bauhin, in his Pinax, a work of forty years' labor, includes all the above names as synonyms, under the descriptive phrase of milium arundinaceum subrotundo semine sorgo nominatum, (millet cane, with nearly round seeds, called sorgo.) With the observations that the seed varies in color, from rufous to black, and from white to yellow, these names represent one or more species. In reading the above authors we found that the uses of these plants were various; under the name of millet they were used for making bread and feeding poultry; in some other instances, but in the middle centuries principally, when the Romans, conquerors of the world, came to change their classical language into the present Italian, that same plant, the millet, preserving its Indian name, sorgo, was also called melica, from the sweet taste of its juice. As the true Indian millet, (sorghum vulgare,) which is our Durra corn, does not possess the same sweetness as the present Chinese cane, it proves that the ancient botanists have confounded together the Indian millet and the Chinese cane.

Through Asia, by Egyptian and Syrian commerce, and from Italy to the coast of north Africa, the Indian sugar-cane has spread on African soil, where it has created the imphee races, so very different in appearance from the Chinese plants; and these varieties will, by the new impetus of cultivation, still further increase their polymorphous tendencies in the same manner as our wheat, apples, cabbage, &c.

From Bauhin to the present day the botanists have been more definite in the determination of these plants. Linnæus ranges them, in his genus Holcus, under the specification of H. sorghum for the Indian millet, and H. saccharatum for the Chinese cane.

Persoon, after a careful study of these plants, has divided the Linnæan genus Holcus to form a new one, which he calls Sorghum.

CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE INDIAN SUGAR-CANE AND ITS VARIETIES.

The sorgo sugar-cane belongs to the gramineous family, and is included in

the genus

SORGHUM:

HOLCI species, Lin.;
ANDROPOGONIS, Kuntz;
SORGHUM, Pers.

Etymology-Name from shorghi, the popular appellation for the plants of this genus in the East Indies.

Generic characters.-Spikelets, (flowers with their husks at the end of the small branches,) two or three together on the slender ramifications of the pani.cles, (bunches,) the lateral ones abortive or reduced to a mere pedicel, the middle or terminal ones fertile. Glumes, (husk, hull,) coriaceous, closely bearded or downy, becoming indurated after the anthesis, (blooming,) with or without awn. Palea, (inner husk,) membranous; stamens, three; styles, two, with bearded stigmas. Stout, tall grasses, with solid stocks with pith.

Specific name.-SORGHUM SACCHARATUM.

Milium quod ex India, in Italiam invectum nigro
colore....

Pliny.
Lobel.
Dodon.

Cœsalpin.

G. Bauhin.

Rumphi.

Milium Indicum arundinaceo caule, granis flaves

Description.-Root, fibrous; culm, (stock,) thick, stout, solid, with pith, from six to twelve feet high; leaves, lanceolate, acuminate, downy at the base; flowers, forming a large, more or less diffusely spreading panicle, with the branches more or less verticillate, often nodding when in fruit; glumes, (husk,) of the perfect flower, hairy, downy, and persistent. From the East Indies. Cultivated.

This species offers numerous varieties, which form two races, the Chinese and the Imphee. The Chinese race is represented only by a single plant, which has preserved all the above specific characters. The Imphees are numerous, and their variations are mostly distinguished by their compact panicle, and by the length of their seeds relatively to the glumes, (husk.)

equalling or shorter than the glumes. GLUMES.