the Cultivation of Potatoes. 2 1 o 



eatable ; and others again (but these were few in number, not more than three or 

 four), were equal to the best potatoes now in use. One of them, indeed, was of so 

 superior a quality that, unless it should degenerate on further cultivation, it will 

 eclipse almost every other species hitherto known. 



In raising potatoes from seed, even though no new varieties were to be obtained, 

 there will be found a great advantage in the practice, from the potatoes being more 

 prolific than those which have been raised repeatedly through a long course of years 

 from sets. 



II. Choice of Sorts. 



It has been recommended to those who intend raising potatoes for the purpose 

 of feeding animals, to cultivate the sorts which are most prolific, without regard to 

 their quality, such as the Howard, or cluster potatoe, the black yam, ox noble. 

 Sec. &c. a practice which cannot be too severely reprobated, both as injurious to 

 the community, and as not being most beneficial to the growers themselves. 



So long as there is a market for potatoes as an article of human food, they will 

 always bear a better price than the grower can make of them, by giving them to 

 animals. .\nd even when applied as the food of animals, the best sorts will always 

 be found the most profitable, as containing the greatest quantity of nourishment in 

 a given bulk. 



It is universally allowed, that the most nutritious part of this excellent vegetable 

 is the farinaceous or mealy part, and that the least nutritive, or rather the delete- 

 rious part, is the aqueous. Now I find by analysis, that a dry mealy potatoe, such 

 as is usually considered of a good kind, yields of farina at least twenty-five per 

 cent, more than such as are waxey or livery. The vegeto-animal matter also is 

 more abundant in the one than in the other. But the latter kind is not only infe- 

 ferior, in as much as it contains less nutriment, but as it contains a superabundant 

 share of that which is deleterious, namely, the watery part. 



It seems almost needless to mention, that rhe juice of the raw potatoe is violently 

 purgative, as is well known to every one who has given potatoes in large quantities 

 to cattle or hogs, without a liberal allowance of dry food. Even when boiled, if 

 they are suffered to remain in the water after it begins to cool, they will reabsorb 

 so much of the juices they had parted with as to render them much too laxative, if 

 given in large quantities, to be wholesome. 



Ff2 



