THE POTATO CROP. 



WE now have to discuss the cultivation of another crop, 

 differing greatly in all its natural characters from those 

 which have preceded it, and belonging to an entirely differ- 

 ent order SOLANE^E : an order which, although furnish- 

 ing but few plants that subserve the wants or comforts 

 of mankind, contains two which probably enter as largely 

 as any into the consumption of the inhabitants of the 

 temperate zones. These two are the POTATO and TOBACCO 

 the one cultivated extensively as a " Farm Crop" in 

 this country, the other forming an equal object of import- 

 ance to the cultivators in more genial climates than our 

 own. With the exception of the tomato (Solanum ly coper - 

 sicuni) which, though grown as a field crop on the Con- 

 tinent and in America, is in this country confined entirely 

 to the garden the potato is the only representative of this 

 order which we cultivate in our fields as an article of food. 

 The disease with which the potato has been visited, with 

 more or less severity, during the last fifteen or sixteen years, 

 has called public attention more particularly to this plant ; 

 and we can all testify to the very general feeling of loss sus- 

 tained, when we have from time to time been restricted 

 in the use of this necessary constituent of our daily food. 

 In Ireland, where the potato enters more largely than 

 with us into the food of the people, the loss was more 

 severely felt. The statistics of population testify to the 

 effects produced, and portray too truly the sad picture 

 of a population trusting its food supply to well-nigh a 



