Cultivation of Arable Land. Potatoes Application of Crops of. J23 



Experience feems to prove, that where the heat is properly applied through the 

 medium of fleam, the potatoes become more meaiy and nourifhing than where 

 water is made ufe of for the fame purpofe. But the difference.^ in the mealinefs. 

 produced by the boiling of this root is fuppofed by fome to depend more upon the 

 nature of the foil on which it is grown than on any other circumftance. And it 

 has been fuggefled, that the mealinefs of fome potatoes that have undergone the 

 operation of boiling, may be fometimes a fie died by the acidity of the water in which 

 they have been boiled : but it is believed to depend more generally upon the mu 

 cilage in fome of them being more coagulable than in others, a circumflance the 

 caufe of which has not yet been fully invefligated.* 



The warning of this root, where it is employed upon an extend ve fcale, is fre 

 quently a troublefome operation ; it may, however, be performed with great eafe 

 and convenience, by having a veffel conftru&amp;lt;5led fomewhat in the form of a barrel, 

 with fmall flrong narrow laths on the fides, nailed to the folid boards, forming 

 the ends at fuch diflances as may be fufficient for preventing the potatoes or other 

 roots from falling through, and at the fame time for admitting the water to pafs 

 freely. The potatoes are to be introduced and evacuated by means of a door fixed 

 in one of the fides. The vefiel being thus prepared, is to be hung upon a frame 

 of wood over a large fquare tub containing water, in fuch a manner as that about 

 one half of it may be immerfed ; a crooked handle projecting at one of the ends, 

 by quickly turning which, when the potatoes are put in, a large quantity may be 

 expeditioufly warned. There fhould likewife be a contrivance in the frame higher 

 up and nearer the fide of the ciflern for lifting the barrel from the place in which 

 it turns into, in order that, by opening the door and turning it round, the wafhed 

 roots may be eafily delivered into a barrow or other velfel placed below and ap 

 propriated to their reception. An improved contrivance for effedling this pur 

 pofe has been noticed in the fedlion on Implements. 



There is flill another circumflance in regard to potatoe crops that deferves to be 

 noticed, which is the effects they produce on the foil. It feems probable, both 

 from the nature of the root and the large portion of manure that is necelfary to in- 

 fure a good crop, except under particular circumflances of the land, that the po 

 tatoe is a fort of plant that has a tendency to draw a large quantity of nourifhment 

 from the foil on which it is grown, confequerttly to exhaufl and impoverifh it in 

 a confiderable degree, though thefe injurious efFedls are in fome mcafure counter 

 acted by, the great abundance of flem and the clofenefs of the foliage, producing a 

 ftagnated flate of the air, and a confiderable depofition of vegetable and other mat 

 ter on the furface, as well as by thepulverifation and aration that is afforded in the- 



* Darwin s Phytologia, p, 450. 

 Fv2 



