VARIETIES OF THE POTATO. 9 



forty years, has been most remarkable, as every 

 census informs us, notwithstanding the havoc and 

 waste of continual warfare, and most extensive 

 emigration; and as it seems to be an established 

 maxim, that population will increase according to 

 the means of supply, so, if a northern hive should 

 swarm again, or 



" Blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic shore" 



once more arise, future historians will probably 

 attribute this excess of population, and the revolu- 

 tions it may effect, to the introduction of vaccina- 

 tion 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- 



* But dibbling is Hot held in esteem by* us : we think that in 

 wet seasons th& 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, be- 

 come 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. 



