184 ON POTATOES. 



In this calculation the external rows, which derived superior advantage 

 from air and light, were excluded. No more manure, or culture, than 

 is usually given, had been employed, for the crop was not planted with 

 any intention of having it weighed : the wet summer was, however, very 

 favourable. 



I am not acquainted with the ordinary amount of the weight of a good 

 crop of potatoes, upon an acre of ground in a favourable soil, when well- 

 manured and cultivated ; but I am confident, that it may generally be 

 made to exceed twenty tons, by a proper selection of varieties : and if 

 four pounds of good potatoes afford, as is generally supposed, at least as 

 much nutriment as one pound of wheat, the produce of an acre of 

 potatoes, such as I have described, is capable of supporting as large a 

 population, as eight acres of wheat, admitting the calculation of Mr. 

 Arthur Young, that the average produce of an acre of wheat is 22^ 

 bushels or 1440 Ibs. ; and as an acre of wheat will certainly support as 

 large a number of people as five acres of permanent pasture, it follows, 

 that an acre of potatoes affords as much food for mankind, as forty acres 

 of permanent pasture : an important subject for consideration, in a 

 country where provisions are scarce and dear, and where so high bounties 

 on pasture are paid in the form of taxes on tillage, that the extent of 

 permanent pasture is certainly and consequently increasing : and it must 

 increase, under existing circumstances; for it pays a higher rent to 

 the landlord, and relieves the farmer from much labour, anxiety, and 

 vexation. 



To what extent a crop of potatoes will generally be increased by the 

 total prevention of all disposition to blossom, the soil and variety being, 

 in all other respects, the same, it is difficult to conjecture ; but I imagine 

 that the expenditure of sap in the production of fruit-stalks and blossoms 

 alone would be sufficient to occasion an addition, of at least an ounce, to 

 the weight of the tubers of each plant, and if each square yard were to 

 contain eight plants, as in the crop I have mentioned, the increased 

 produce of an acre would considerably exceed a ton, and of course 

 be sufficient, in almost all cases, to pay the rent of the ground. 



I do not know how far other parts of England are well supplied with 

 good varieties of potatoes ; but those cultivated in my neighbourhood in 

 Herefordshire and Shropshire, are generally very bad. Many of them 

 have been introduced from Ireland, and to that climate they are 

 probably well adapted ; for the Irish planter is secure from frost from 

 the end of A pril nearly to the end of November : but in England, the 

 potato is never safe from frost till near the end of May ; indeed I have 



