OF AGRICULTURE. 169 



In the last weeks of May and in June, when 

 the export is at its height, quite a fleet of 

 steamers runs between the small island of 

 Jersey and various ports of England and 

 Scotland. Every day eight to ten steamers 

 enter the harbour of St. Helier, and in twenty- 

 four hours they are loaded with potatoes and 

 steer for London, Southampton, Liverpool, 

 Newcastle, and Scotland. From 50,000 to 60,000 

 tons of potatoes, valued at from 260,000 to 

 500,000, according to the year, are thus ex- 

 ported every summer ; and, if the local con- 

 sumption be taken into account, we have at 

 least 60,000 to 70,000 tons that are obtained, 

 although no more than from 6,500 to 7,500 

 acres are given to all potato crops, early and 

 late early potatoes, as is well known, never 

 giving as heavy crops as the later ones. Ten 

 to eleven tons per acre is thus the average, 



places of the South coast of England early potatoes can also 

 be grown to say nothing of Cornwall and South Devon, where 

 potatoes are obtained by separate labourers in small quantities 

 as early as they are obtained in Jersey. But so long as this 

 culture remains the work of isolated growers, its results must 

 necessarily be inferior to those which the Jersey peasants obtain 

 through their collective experience. For the technical details 

 concerning potato-culture in Jersey, see a paper by a Jersey 

 grower in the Journal of Horticulture, 22nd and 29th May, 1890. 

 Considerable progress has been made lately in Cornwall, espe- 

 cially in the neighbourhood of Penzance, in the development 

 of potato-growing and intensive market-gardening, and one may 

 hope that the successes of these growers will incite others to 

 imitate their example. 



