16 MR. colman's address. 



small returns. One lumdred and fifty bushels to the acre Is 

 more than an average crop throughout this county. These can 

 hardly be rated on the farm at more than one shilling per bushel, 

 which would be equal to twenty-five dollars, out of which the 

 expense of four or five dollars for seed is to be deducted. For 

 feeding beef stock it is doubtful if they should be rated so high. 

 I have made no experiments with them in this way upon which 

 I can rely. When steamed they are represented as excellent 

 feed for horses. Many persons speak well of them in fattening 

 beef; but the best grazing counties in the State do not deem 

 them a very profitable object of culture. " To mix potatoes in the 

 food of fattening pigs," says an English agriculturalist, " is de- 

 ceptions, deteriorating the pork in exact proportion. Hence the 

 Irish pork and bacon are generally inferior to the English, and 

 the market price is in proportion. The inferiority was some 

 years since stated at three ounces per pound or upwards by an 

 eminent dealer in Irish provisions."* But after deducting the 

 expense of seed, the labor of manuring, planting, hoeing, and 

 gathering, which is always a troublesome business, the profits of 

 such cultivation must be very small. They likewise return 

 little to the ground, for the tops of potatoes can scarcely be 

 considered as of any value. 



Carrots are a more profitable crop than potatoes. This crop 

 is of great value. " A bushel of carrots, for any stock. Is equal 

 to two-thirds of a bushel of potatoes, or of equal value weight for 

 weight." Jt is little more expensive to raise six hundred bushels 

 of carrots than two hundred of potatoes. Again, land which 

 \vill produce fifty bushels of corn to the acre, will produce six 

 hundred bushels of carrots, or twelve for one ; and a New- York 

 farmer by the name of Waring says that "^ two and a half or 

 at most three bushels of carrots will make as much beef, pork, 

 mutton, milk, or horse flesh as one bushel of corn. This seems 

 to be an extravagant estimate ; but if they will do half as much 

 the advantage is greatly in favor of carrots. 



* British Farmers' Magazine, Vol. I. p. 594. 



