On preserving Potatoes for Sea Store or Exportation. 289 
causes them to have a bitter taste, and it may be remarked, 
that potatoes are never so sweet to the palate as when cooked 
immediately after digging. I find that when potatoes are left 
in large heaps or pits in the ground, that a fermentation takes 
‘place which destroys the sweet flavour of the potatoes. In order 
to prevent that fermentation, and to preserve them from losing 
the original fine and pleasant flavour, my plan is (and which ex- 
perience proves to me to have the desired effect) to have them 
packed in casks as they are digging from the ground, and to 
have the casks, when the potatoes are piled in them, filled up 
with sand or earth, taking care that is done as speedily as pos- 
sible, and that all vacant spaces in the cask are filled up by the 
earth or sand: the cask thus packed holds as many potatoes as 
it would was the earth or sand used in the packing ; and as the 
vacant spaces of the cask of potatoes so packed are filled, the 
air is totally excluded, and cannot act on the potatoes, and 
consequently no fermentation can take place. 
I sailed from New York to St. Bartholomew’s, and brought 
with me two hundred barrels of potatoes packed in the above 
manner: on my arrival at the island I found, as I expected, 
that the potatoes had preserved all their original sweetness of 
flavour, in fact, as good as when first dug, having undergone 
no fermentation, nor in the slightest degree affected by the 
bilge or close air of the ship. Some barrels of the potatoes I sold 
there, and at the neighbouring islands, for four dollars per 
bushel: at the same time potatoes taken out in bulk without 
packing, and others that were brought there packed in casks 
which had not been filled up with earth, sold ouly for one dollar 
per bushel, they being injured in the passage by the bilged air 
aud fermentation, being bitter and bad, whilst mine were as 
perfectly sweet and dry as when dug: what remained I shipped 
from St. Bartholomew’s to Jamaica, where they arrived in equal 
good condition, and sold at a higher price than they had brought 
at the former island: some of these casks of potatoes were put 
in a cool cellar by the purchaser at Jamaica ; and on examining 
them when I was leaving the island two months after, I found 
that they had, in a very small degree, sprouted, but that all 
their original flavour was preserved. Reflecting seriously on 
this discovery, suggested to my mind the idea of proposing to 
the British nation a mode of supplying their West India colonies 
with a good and wholesome food for the negroes, and also for 
the white people, and which would find an additional market 
for the farmer at home, a valuable freight for the merchant, and 
a more extended market for the lumber of the North American 
colonies, viz. of Canada, Nova Scotia, &c. 
It is well known that our ships in the West India trade in 
Vol.. 47. No. 216. April 1816. 1 general 
