[ io6 ] 



could neither be occafioned by any defect in the kc6^ nor 

 peculiarity of weather; and on this occafion 1 imagined I 

 had difcovered a circumftance that had hitherto baffled all 

 my refearches : for I thought it next to certain that the 

 fuperior mealinefs of the one part of the potatoes in this 

 experiment, was occafioned by the ground on which they 

 were planted having* been broke up directly from grafs ; 

 and although I could affign no probable reafon why this 

 fhould be fo, yet as no other difference between them was 

 ohfervable, I refolved to repeat the experiment, to fee if the 

 fame phenomena regularly occurred. This produced the 

 following trial : 



Experiment Fourteenth. 



In the year 1777, I made choice of another patch of 

 ground, one half of which had been in culture many years, 

 and the other half was in grafs three years old. Both of 

 thefe were dug over in the month of April, exactly in the 

 fame manner as in the foregoing experiment, and were 

 planted as before, with one kind of potatoes on the fame 

 day. In every refpccT: thefe were treated, as nearly as pof- 

 fible, in the fame way with thofe in the laft experiment. 

 But when they were taken up at the proper feafon, to my 

 great mortification, I found that no fenfible difference could 

 be obferved in the friability of the potatoes obtained from 

 the one or the other divifion. The reader will alfo pleafe 

 to recollect, that experiments fecond and third were made 

 upon ground in like manner newly broke up from grafs ; 

 but neither were the potatoes that were produced upon it, 

 although it was a dry, fharp, thin foil, not at all remarkable 

 for their drynefs or mealinefs : they were even much infe-r 

 rior in this rcfpecT: to thofe which were obtained from both 

 the divifions of the prefent experiment j although the foil 

 was, in the lait cafe, of a deeper and damper kind. 



It 



