28 VARIETIES OF THE POTATO. 



on the one part, and the cultivation of the potato 

 on the other. 



The varieties of this tuber, like apples, seem 

 annually extending, and every village has its own 

 approved sorts and names, different soils being 

 found preferable for particular kinds, and local 

 treatment advantageous. We plant both by the 

 dibble* and the spade: our chief sorts are pink 

 eyes, prince's beauty, magpies, and china oranges, 

 for our first crop; blacks, roughs, and reds, for 

 the latter crop; and horses' legs, for cattle. We 

 have a new sort under trial, with rather an extra- 

 ordinary name, which I must here call " femora 

 dominarum !" But we find here, as is usual with 

 other vegetable varieties, that after a few years' 

 cultivation the sorts lose their original characters, 

 or, as the men say, " the land gets sick of them," 

 and they cease to produce as at first, and new sets 

 are resorted to. We have no vegetable under cul- 

 tivation more probably remunerative than this, or 

 more certain of being in demand sooner or later; 

 it consequently becomes an article of speculation, 

 but not to such an injurious extent as some others 

 are : it gives a sufficient profit to the farmer and 

 his sub-renter. Our land is variously rented for 



* But dibbling is not held in esteem by us : we think that in wet 

 seasons the holes retain the moisture and the sets perish ; and that 

 in dry weather, being less covered than when planted by the spade, 

 they are more obnoxious to injury by birds and mice, become affected 

 by droughts, are longer in shooting out, and produce, in most cases, 

 inferior crops. In a lighter soil these objections, perhaps, would 

 not be found reasonable. 



