288 , POTATOES. [PART u. 



275. The price of a bushel of fine flour, at 

 Botley, is, at this time, 10s. The weight is 

 56 Ibs. The price of a bushel of potatoes is 2s. 6d. 

 They are just now dug up, and are at the 

 cheapest. A bushel of potatoes which are mea 

 sured by a large bushel, weighs about 60 Ibs. 

 dirt and all, for they are sold unwashed. Allow 

 4 Ibs. for dirt, and the weights are equal. Well, 

 then, here is toiling Dick with his four bushels 

 of potatoes, and John with his bushel of flour. 

 But, to be fair, I must allow, that the relative 

 price is not always so much in favour of flour. 

 Yet, I think you will agree with me, that upon 

 an average, five bushels of potatoes do cost as 

 much as one bushel of flour. You know very 

 well, that potatoes in London, sell for Id. arid 

 .sometimes for 2d. a pound ; that is to say, 

 sometimes for IL 7s. 6d. and sometimes for 

 2/. 15s. the five bushels. This is notorious. 

 Every reader knows it. And did you ever 

 hear of a bushel of flour selling for 2/. 15s. 

 Monstrous to think of! And yet the trades 

 man's wife, looking narrowly to every halfpenny, 

 trudges away to the potatoe shop to get five or 

 six pounds of this wretched root for the pur 

 pose of saving flour ! She goes and gives lOd. 

 for ten pounds of potatoes, when she might buy 

 five pounds of flour with the same money I 



