288 



Crack Stock — Potatoes. 



Vol. VI. 



people talk of animals which had taken a first 

 or second premium, as if they were amonjj 

 the best cattle of the land, when in truth 1 

 would not own them as a gift, except by way 

 of experimenting with them. 



The article appended by " Subscriber" from 

 the " Delaware Republican," is a gross libel 

 on the character and qualities of the cattle 

 that are the pride and boast of the country, and 

 which are owned by the most intelligent and 

 patriotic farmers in almost every state. The 

 writer of that article is either unfortunately 

 ignorant or wilfully malicious — I suspect the 

 latter — his intention cannot be mistaken when 

 he decries the owners of the " hii;h-priced 

 stock," as he has it, by likening them to the 

 Merino speculators, and when he advises 

 farmers to keep themselves clear of cattle that 

 take so long a time " to bring them to an ar- 

 tificial and bloated condition." — Can anything 

 be more false, whether malicious or not, than 

 th is 1 It forms the very reverse of the charac- 

 ter and properties of the stock he attempts to 

 depreciate, for all who know anything of it, 

 must allow to these cattle two prominent, 

 uniform characteristics — rapid maturing or 

 growth, and easy fed or fatted. 



All of which, Mr. Editor, with your per- 

 mission, I will on a future occasion establish, 

 to the entire satisfaction of every honest friend 

 to agriculture. Respectfully, 



A Practical Farhbr. 



April 2d, 1842. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Potatoes. 



" Whether your tale be false or true, 

 Keep proiiability in view." 



When I read the article in relation to Gen. 

 Bnrnum's cropsof potatoes, in the last number 

 of the Cabinet, I was instantly reminded of 

 the above lines. We are lek in the dark 

 with respect to the quantity of ground actu- 

 ally in potatoes, or the number of bushels 

 actually raised. If the general or his mea- 

 surers took btit a hill or two, where the pro- 

 duce wase.\traordinary,and measured around 

 each hill, it is not so wonderful, as to be alto- 

 gether incredible, if he should make the yield 

 at the rate he mentions. But if we are to 

 understand tliat IMIO bushels of potatoes were 

 actually grown on an English acre — and that 

 on five acres 10,719 bu.'-hels were grown, 

 averaging, by the way, 2144 bushels instead 

 of 1843 — as made by his " mathematicians, 

 who cast up the stim.s," — then I cry, "spare 

 us," — and " when he next such a crop doth 

 raise, may I be there to see !" 



I hail from the land of water-melons, blow- 

 ing sands, fat oxen, and oysters. I have, too, 

 in ray day, seen Irish potatoes growing — in- 

 deed, I have myself raieed very nearly 400 



bushels on an acre: and really, even they 

 seemed tolerably thick on the ground : but 

 only to think— 3410 bushels! Why my 400 

 were but the beginning of a crop! 



Well, let us see how close they must have 

 nestled — how many inches thick they must 

 have been, on the ground ! 160 square rods 

 make an acre : in these square rods we find 

 4840 square yards, and this number, multiplied 

 by 9, gives 43,560 square feet in an acre. 

 Now, in 3410 bushels there are 27,280 half- 

 pecks, and if 27,280 half-pecks grow on 

 43,560 square feet, it will require a piece of 

 ground containing about 230 square inches, to 

 yield half-a-peck ; or, in other words, if the 

 hills are a little more than 1.5 inches apart, 

 each way, all over the acre, and every hill 

 yields half-a-peck, there will be 3410 bushels 

 on the acre ; or, if the rows are 2 feet apart, 

 and the sets in the rows about 9^ inches, and 

 every set yields half-a-peck, the acre will turn 

 out about 3400 bushels. Again, as there are 

 about 2150 cubic inches in a bushel, there 

 are about 269 in half-a-peck — and as these 

 269 cubic inches of potatoes are to grow on 

 230 square inches of ground, we perceive that 

 the potatoes must lay solid, more than an inch 

 thick ! 



I am not about to assert the impossibility 

 of there having been actually grown 3400 

 bushels of potatoes on an acre ; perhaps, how- 

 ever, I might be allowed to quote an expres- 

 sion I remember to have heard used some 

 years ago, by a venerable and shrewd old 

 gentleman — "if that's so, its true enough." 

 However improbable this crop may appear, 

 yet it is perhaps not impossible. There are 

 many facts in relation to the growth of plants, 

 as well as ten thousand other things, which 

 would, doubtless, appear incredible to many 

 of us who read the Cabinet, but which it 

 would be very unphilosophical, as well as silly 

 to deny. I recollect hearing the late I. S. 

 of Woodbury, N. J., a man whom his neigh- 

 bours will allow to have been incapable of 

 misrepresentation or exaggeration, relate, 

 that from a piece of ground of perhaps 4 or 5 

 square rods, which had for many years been 

 covered by a barn, then recently removed, he 

 had gathered and measured with great care, 

 a yield of rye, at the rate of 115 bushels to 

 the acre! Some ten or twelve years ago I 

 planted my orchard with corn; it was near 

 the house, and the pigs and the chickens, 

 having no fisar of trespassing before their 

 eyes, took a good many hills, from time to 

 time, till it was too late to replant the corn. 

 I then told my little boys they might plant 

 the missing corn-hills with potatoes ; they did 

 so, putting a whole Mercer polatoe of good 

 size in each destroyed corn-hill. No manure 

 had been used for the corn — none was used 

 for the potatoes, but the ground was good. In 



