f 90 



On Potatoes. 



paid in the form of taxes on tillage, that the extent of per- 

 manent 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 in- 

 creased 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 cultiva- 

 ted in my neighbourhood in Herefordshire and Shropshire, 

 are generally very bad. Many of them have been intro- 

 duced from Ireland, and to that climate they are probably 

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

 the end of April nearly to the end of November : but in 

 England, the Potatoe is never safe from frost till near the 

 end of May ; indeed I have seen the leaves and stems of 

 a crop, in a very low situation, completely destroyed as 

 late as the 13th of June, and they are generally injured 

 before the middle, and sometimes in the first week of 

 September. 



