[ I0 4 3 



local pofition, and other accidental circumftances, 

 that the growth of the potatoes in the dry early foil 

 might be checked by frofls many weeks before thofe 

 on the other foil were affected; in confequence of 

 which, the plants in the cold foil might attain to 

 more perfect maturity, than thofe on the drier one. 

 I mention this peculiarity, merely to (hew how cau- 

 tious the farmer ought to be in adopting general 

 conclufions, without carefully attending to all the 

 collateral circumltances that may affect his experi- 

 ment. I (hall only farther add on this head, that I 

 had occafion to know well a dry warm fpot of 

 ground, on which the items of the potatoes of crop 

 1776 were froft-bitten, at leaft fix weeks before 

 thofe on another fpot at fome miles diftance from 

 it, where the foil was naturally more cold and damp, 

 were in the fmalleft degree affected by it. It like- 

 wife fo happened, that the potatoes raifed on the 

 ■firft-mentioned fpot in the year 1777, (their own 

 froft-bitten* feed was employed) had fuch a pecu- 

 liar acrid and bitterifh tafte v as to be hardly at all 

 eatable; while thofe in the colder place of that crop 

 had nothing of that unufual tafte. Whether this 

 diverfity was occafioned by the circumftance here 



* Obferve, the term frcft -bitten is here applied to the ftems only, 

 and not to the bulbs. The items were fo much hu r t by the froft as 

 to turn black and decay., but the. bulbs were taken up before the froft 

 had been fufficiently intenfe to hurt them. 



allude^ 



