56 On Potatoes. 



as soon as possible, I declined it, for a reason which 

 appeared to me sufficient ; because not one pamphlet 

 in an hundred circulates among farmers : but as your 

 useful paper is very generally read, I beg leave to 

 communicate to you those circumstances which may 

 immediately tend to induce a more general cultivation 

 of that important root. 



The average import of wheat for the last twelve 

 years has been little short of 700,000 quarters per an- 

 num, at an expense, in that period, of above 30,000,000 

 pounds sterling. Supposing the grass and arable land 

 of the kingdom to amount only to 25,000,000 of acres ; 

 half an acre in every hundred added to the present 

 space under this crop, would produce human food suf- 

 ficient to answer the purpose of all such imported 

 wheat ; and this at the moderate estimate of one acre 

 of potatoes being equal to two of wheat : hence then 

 the difficulty of feeding ourselves without a depend- 

 ence on foreigners and enemies cannot be reckoned in- 

 superable ; in truth, it Vv^ould be so very easy a busi- 

 ness, that we can only express astonishment that some 

 means have not already been adopted to secure so ne- 

 cessary a supply. But if the root was attended to, 

 merely with a view of human food, the culture would 

 be liable to great variations, according to the sale 

 price ; so that if wheat happened to be cheap, and po- 

 tatoes consequently low in price, they might be ne- 

 glected, and a scarcity of wheat happen without the 

 root for a substitute ; such a vibration, of many pota- 

 toes in one year and few in the next, is greatly to be de- 

 precated when the subsistence of the people is in ques- 

 tion. On this account I urged the necessity of the 



