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ones cut into pieces. This does not indeed appear 

 to be a matter of doubt with any one individual, if 

 Jie alone fhould be confulted on this head j but 

 the uncertainty appears when many are confulted. 

 Every one is ready to decide pofitively in favour 

 of one or other of thefe modes of practice; but 

 when the votes are collected, it is found that they 

 are nearly equally divided between the two; and 

 when enquiry is made into the reafons on which 

 thefe oppofite opinions are founded, it appears 

 that they reft upon no better foundation than 

 theoretical conjectures : for I have never been able 

 to learn, upon the moft attentive enquiry, that a 

 fingle comparative trial has been made with a 

 view to afcertain this fact. The culture of this 

 plant never attracted my own particular attention 

 till lately, and therefore I never did think of afcer- 

 taining this fact by experiment till the year 1776, 

 at which time the following comparative trial was, 

 made with that intention, 



Experiment First. 

 April 26, 1776, Four rows of potatoes were planted in 

 a piece of garden ground, without dung, for the fake of 

 the experiment ; there being no variation of foil in any 

 part of the experiment ground. Thefe four experimental 

 rows were planted contiguous to one another, and at 

 equal diftances ; other potatoes were planted on each fide, 

 of them, at the fame diftance as they were from each other, 



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