Having derived much pleasure an information from reading accounts of the experiments recorded in the Horticulturist, I feel it right to contribute what little lays in my power towards the general good, in part return for the benefits which I have received from the experience of others.

The potato being so valuable an esculent, every precaution should be used to extend its usefulness, by increasing the varieties and testing the merits of each, as well in quality as from the undertaking. The seed require a long time to regetate, and the growth being slow thereafter, noxious weeds and grass get the start and become very troublesome; the plants attain but a diminutive size early in the season, which is the most favorable time for their growth; the tubers do not set until the latter part of summer, when the dry weather and parching rays of the sun check their future growth, and tend to ripen the crop before it has attained much size, so that the product of the first year is very trifling, and several years are required to ascertain the true qualities of the seedling.

The great object, then, is to get the plants so advanced in the spring, that the tubers may set and grow in the early part of summer, when the refreshing showers alternating with the genial rays of the sun are most favorable for their growth.

The plan that has succeeded well with me for several years past, is as follows: Soon after the ripening of the potato tops, I gathered the balls of the Mercer potato, mashed them together, threw on a little water and left them a few days to ferment, when the seed were easily separated from the pulp and husk, and after being dried were placed away secure from frost or moisture, to remain until spring for planting. The latter part of the third month the seed were sowed in a hot-bed under glass, the grains being sown a quarter of an inch asunder. From the middle to the latter part of the fifth month, the plants being three or four inches high, and frosty weather appearing to be over, on damp cloudy days or soon after a rain, the plants were taken up with a portion of earth to each and placed in loose rich soil, at about the same distance from one another as potatoes are usually planted.

The plants neither wilted nor showed any signs of suffering from transplanting.

It is of importance that they should be put down into the earth two inches lower than they stood in the seed bed; they will thus produce more roots: but care must be taken that the young plants do not produce tubers while they remain in the seed-bed, as they will be very much weakened if allowed to do so before they are put out. The earthing-up of the potatoes raised from the seed, should be done early, and not too heavily; for if the plants arc put out in weather which is not very unfavorable, they soon begin to shoot up, and the entire soil is penetrated by very small fine fibres, which would be injured by a high or late earthing-up, the production of tubers be delayed for a fortnight or three weeks, and the produce diminished. The potato plants thrive best in a rich sandy soil which has been deeply dug. [Potatoes should never be earthed up at all. Ed.]

By the above method I have raised full sized, merchantable potatoes the first year from the seed; many hills having but three to five potatoes and all of a fair size for market - others having a larger amount were proportionally smaller. By recurring to seedlings we may obtain a healthy article free from rot or any other disease, but I have no confidence that they will long remain so after being exposed to the same influence under which the parent stock has degenerated.

The failure of the potato crop in many parts of the country has induced farmer to experiment carefully in order to ascertain if possible in what situations or kinds of soils they generally succeed best, and from what experience I have had, I am inclined to the opinion, that where the land is clayey and tenacious, thereby holding the heavy rains in immediate contact with the tubers until the hot sun coming upon them, while thus thoroughly saturated with water, completes their destruction, drying and baking the ground over and around them, so as to exclude the air; that if they were so near ripe at the time as to retain their form until harvested, they soon give way after being exposed to atland, now operates against the Mercer or Irish potato, which seems to have degenerated in vigor, and has at length yielded to those adverse influences (which the sweet potato never could withstand) that had been imperceptibly, though no less certainly impairing its constitution for many years previous; and that sandy loam, open and porous soils, which allow the excess of moisture to pass off freely from the plants, whereby severe storms act like gentle showers merely to moisten the roots and invigorate the plants, and the genial rays of the sun thereafter meliorate the land to the great benefit of the growing crop - is the most certain land on which to depend for a good crop.

Respectfully, William Parry.

Cinnaminson. Burlington county, N. J., 1st mo. 21, 185l.