220 The Rev. E. Cartwright's Essay on 



The first quality in a potatoe is being mild and farinaceous. Some indeed pre- 

 fer the waxey sorts, but as they bear no proportion to those who have a contrary 

 taste, it would never answer the grower's purpose to cultivate potatoes for such 

 capricious customers. A potatoe, to be worth cultivating as an article of field hus- 

 bandry, must be not only mild and farinaceous, but also prolific. Another property, 

 which is seldom if ever adverted to, is, that it should not run much to haulm : for 

 when the haulm is disposed to be over and above luxuriant, the potatoes admit 

 rot of being planted so close as to obtain the greatest possible crop in a given space, 

 the distance at which they should be planted being determined by the luxuriance of 

 the haulm, rather than by the productiveness of the root. Another quality, and that 

 not an unimportant one, is, that they should ripen early. In this last circumstance 

 there are greater advantages than at first sight may appear; namely, they may be 

 taken up at the farmer's leisure; by coming to maturity at an early period, they are 

 ready for the market before there is a glut; and, if they are to be stored, the days 

 being long and warm, they get thoroughly dry before they are put up, and conse- 

 quently are not so apt to heat and rot as when taken'up later in the season, in rainy 

 weather, as it may happen, or in frost. Add to these considerations, if wheat or 

 winter-tares are to follow, there is sufficient time to get the ground ready for either 

 of those crops. It may be expected, perhaps, that I should point out the particu- 

 lar sorts which I have found to have united in them the principal characters here 

 enumerated. But any one the least conversant with die subject must know that to 

 attempt a description, which could be intelligible, beyond a limited district, would 

 be nearly impossible, the names by which potatoes are usually distinguished being 

 chiefly local. The sorts which have succeeded best with me were called, by those 

 whom I had them from, the Supreme, a moderate sized white potatoe; the early 

 red ; and the white American hundred eyes; names which they are probably known 

 by only in the neighbourhood where they were originally raised. 



The two former kinds have nothing discriminating in their form or external ap- 

 pearance to distinguish them from the common round white or red sorts. The 

 American hundred eyes is readily distinguished from every other plant of its species 

 that I have yet had an opportunity of observing. It is, in general, from four to 

 six or seven inches long, cylindrical, slender, and, as its name imports, full of eyes. 

 These are from twenty-five to thirty in number, and rather deeply indented. But 

 the most striking peculiarity in this variety is, that the eyes do not break out, as in 



