Our Agricultural statistics show, that in the State of Maine, the crop in 18G7 

 was but 16 per cent., and ihat in n-uraerons years, it has proven a total failure, 

 not only there, bat in parts of several of the Middle States, and throur^hout 

 almost the entire Western States, where in fact they no longer look upon the, 

 culture of the potato as v\-orthy of further attention. 



The price which some years since was but 25 cents per bushel, has now ad- 

 vanced to SI and SI. 50, which has a most oppressive influence on the poorer 

 classes wlio have a'ways been large consumers. 



The past year, ISCS. the cnld and frequent rains in ^Faine and other Eastern 

 States which contmued until the middle of June caused the Potatoes to rot in 

 the ground. In numerous Counties of Illinois and Michigan, the Potato bug 

 has become a perm.anent destroyer, so that many declare that reliance on its 

 future culture is out of the question. In other Western and Northern States 

 the Potato culture has been attended with the most discouraging results. It 

 may therefore be readily foreseen, that the time is approaching when this tender 

 and unreliable Tropical root is destined to an entire rejection and abandonment, 

 not only by our Northern. Eastern and Western States, but by the British Pro- 

 vinces. 



How auspicious th-^.'s is the discovery and the advent to our Country of the 

 Chinese Yam, which we may justly hail as the crowning gift of an all-beneficent 

 Providence. Henceforth, when deploring the disastrous blights, failures and 

 disappointments, which have changed our Potato fields from former health to 

 their present decay, we may confidently congratulate ourselves on the attainment 

 of a grand desideratum, a substitute far more estimable in all its properties than 

 the Potiito. a hardy and vigorous plant, a native of countries still colder than 

 our own. and which combines within itself all the characteristics that our most 

 ardent desires could have demanded. 



This Chinese Yam will first supersede the Potato in our Northern. Eastern 

 and Western States, whence its culture will be extended to the vast British 

 'I'erritories at the north, until it becomes everywhere the grand basal constituent 

 for food of all Northern America, where the Potato and Indian Corn never have 

 been and never can be grown, thus providing those regions now being opened 

 to the world with ample alimentary resources, as it has already done to China, 

 Japan, Tartary and all Northern Asia. Its culture will also be adopted through- 

 out Northern Europe to which it offers the only reliable protection ao-ainst the 

 scanty product of their present Agricultural productions. Ireland will become 

 a complete Yam storehouse not only for itself, but for supplying its needy 

 northern neighbors. 



But little foresiofht of our mental vision is required to r-^alizs the momentous 

 results which will be consummated when this nutritious, excellent, and abundant 

 product of food is thus disseminated, thereby developing the ever progressive and 

 benign purposes of God and Nature, in their ample provision for the destinies of 

 Plunianity. But the mighty and boundless area for which God and Nature have 

 designed this Esculent as the most gladdening and beneficent boon, destined to 

 occupy a controlling position as the most important alimentary basis, comprises 

 the vast Western regions of our own Country, stretching over our entire Con- 

 tinent to the shores of the Pacific, and extending: its He-'culean arms grasping on 

 the one side the polar north, and on the other that Isthmus which is to become 

 the channel through which we shall ere long command and extend our vast com- 

 merce with the world. 



In this mighty domain of intelligence and industry, will in the future ages b ■ 

 found the teeming millions, equalling and perhaps surpassing the vast aggregav 

 of the Chinese and Japan Empires, and all sustained and cherished by the sani' 

 nutritious, healthful, and purifying food. 



