MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 739 



five, six, seven, and even eight hundred bushels to the acre. 

 The best crop that came to my knowledge, grew on the farm of 

 Dr. Andrew Nichols, in Middleton, on a light soil, with mod- 

 erate manuring, yielding 355 bushels upon 70 rods. 



I ought not to omit, that Mr. Ephraim Brown, of Marblehead, 

 stated to me that he raised, the present season, six hundred 

 bushels on half an acre. I know Mr. B.'s land to be first rate, 

 and that he spreads his manure with a liberal hand. Such a 

 crop pays well for doing this, at 40 cents the bushel, the price 

 for which they were sold in Boston market. 



POTATOES. 



When I commenced this essay, my purpose was to speak of 

 the culture of the potato, and the casualties to which it is ex- 

 posed, it being the vegetable on which the human family are 

 more dependant for sustenance than all others ; the sudden 

 annihilation of which would unavoidably create distress ir- 

 remediable. But the mystery that overhangs the subject ; the 

 numerous abortive explanations that have been attempted, and 

 the impossibility of condensing anything of value within the 

 compass of an essay, have deterred me from the undertaking. 

 Judging from the experience of the last year, there is a prob- 

 ability that the potato may get well of itself, without the aid 

 of the doctor ; and that the Commonwealth will be relieved of 

 anxiety, and of the payment of the bounty offered.* 



* I have recently met " Remarks on the Potato Plant," presented to the Kilkenny 

 Literary Scientific Institution, Ireland, which contains better sense on the subject than 

 I have before seen. The writer discards entirely the insect and the atmospheric causes 

 of decay or disease, and finds a reason therefor in the natural history of the plant ; in 

 the fact, that it has its limited period of vivification, fructification, and decay; — which 

 he estimates about thirty-four years — divided into periods of five, nineteen, and ten, 

 from the seed of the potato ball. He relies entirely upon the cultivation from the seed, 

 and not from the tuber, to maintain the recuperative energies of the plant. I have 

 before heard the same idea advanced by Gen. Caleb Gushing, whose penetrating mind 

 looks into subjects as far as any other man, and am inclined to believe the keystone 

 of the mystery will be found on this track. Nothing short of a series of observations 

 for twenty years or more, can fully test this theory ; but any man who will do this, 

 in this period, will raise a monument of fame more durable than brass, and have the 

 consolation that he will ever be remembered as the benefactor of the human race. 



