Lay two rows of two by four inch scantling on the dry earth floor, near the sides and across the end of the room opposite the door, and place on them a double row of barrels, each filled about three-quarters full of potatoes, or about three bushels to each barrel. When these have been filled this way, lay scantling across the barrels so as to accommodate other tiers of barrels, until you have about 50 barrels in the room. No earth or water must be used in the barrels; just the plain potatoes. In the centre of the room place your heating apparatus, which may be a small “bake oven” in which one barrel of charcoal will supply all the necessary heat during the four to six weeks of sprouting; or a small stove burning coal or wood so that a _low_ fire may be kept day and night to maintain a temperature of 80° to 90° Fahr., or, even a small oil-stove may be used. [Illustration: A SHELTERED SUBURBAN GARDEN PATCH.] Here the potatoes will sprout and send out rootlets having thousands of small tubers upon them, from the size of a bird’s eye to that of a marble. If you start this sprouting four to six weeks earlier than the ordinary time of planting, you will get your crop just that much ahead of the regular season. Only the best of seed potatoes are used, and Early Rose is the favorite variety, but Mr. Ford says, “that sort is best which is known to grow best in the section of the country where you live.” In the ordinary culture of potatoes, it requires about 30 bushels of seed to the acre, and 300 is a large yield. By Mr. Ford’s method, it takes 140 to 150 bushels to the acre, and the returns are claimed to be 3000 (three thousand) and more bushels. That is, using four or five times as much seed, you get 10 or more times as large a yield. If you intend to experiment on this way of planting an acre, let it be as nearly square as possible, which will give you about 70 rows, each about 209 feet long. Ideal potato land is so light that the soil offers little resistance to the growing of the tuber; so thoroughly tilled and filled with humus as to be quite moist without being wet, and so richly fertilized as to contain a very large quantity of plant food. Starting on the left side of your acre, with a narrow plow, turn a furrow to the left the whole away across; then turn and go back, turning a furrow to the left as you go, far enough from the first to leave a ridge about four to six inches across between them; then go round the whole thing once more, inclining the plow to the left all the way, and guiding it so as to leave the ridge. This will use up the three feet allowed to each row. Continue across the field after the same fashion, seeing that each row is three feet from each other row, and that the unplowed ridges or “balks,” as they are called, are also three feet apart.