290 POTATOES. [PART n. 



there it may as well hang, for we shall find it in 

 continual requisition. For this time the meat and 

 roots boil together. But, what is Dick to have 

 for supper? Bread? No. He shall not have 

 bread, unless he will have bread for dinner. 

 Put on the Pot again for supper. Up an hour 

 before day light and on with the pot. Fill your 

 luncheon-bag, Dick : nothing is so relishing and 

 so strengthening out in the harvest-field, or 

 ploughing on a bleak hill in winter, as a cold 

 potatoe. But, be sure, Dick, to wrap your bag 

 well up in your clothes, during winter, or, 

 when you come to lunch, you may, to your 

 great surprise, find your food transformed into 

 pebbles. Home goes merry Dick, and on goes 

 the pot again. Thus 1095 times in the year 

 Dick's pot must boil. This is, at least, a thou 

 sand times oftener than with a bread and meat 

 diet. Once a week baking and once a week 

 boiling, is as much as a farm house used to re 

 quire. There must be some fuel consumed in 

 winter for warmth. But here are, at the least, 

 500 fires to be made for the sake of these pota 

 toes, and, at a penny a fire, the amount is more 

 than would purchase four bushels of flour, 

 which would make 288 Ibs. of bread, which at 

 7 Ibs. of bread a day, would keep John's family 

 in bread for 41 days out of the 365. This I state 

 as a fact challenging contradiction, that, ex* 



