By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. 99 



communicati3n to this Society, I requested that he would send me 

 an accurate account of the produce ; which I have reason to believe 

 he did, for its amount very nearly agreed with my calculation upon 

 viewing the growing crop about six weeks before it was collected. 

 The situation, in which this crop grew, was high and cold, and the 

 ground was not rich, but the part where the Potatoes to be weighed 

 were selected, was perfectly dry, and afforded a much better crop, 

 than the remainder of the field ; which was planted with several 

 different varieties. I calculated the produce of the selected part 

 to be six hundred bushels per acre, and the report I received, and 

 which I believe to have been perfectly accurate, stated it to be six 

 hundred and twenty-eight. If this produce be eaten by hogs, or 

 cows, or sheep, (for all are equally fond of Potatoes) I entertain no 

 doubt whatever, that it will afford twenty times as much animal 

 food, as the same extent of the same ground would have yielded 

 in permanent pasture ; and I am perfectly satisfied upon the evi- 

 dence of facts which I have recently ascertained that if the whole 

 of the manure afforded by the crops of Potatoes above-mentioned 

 be returned to the field, it will be capable of affording as good, 

 and even a better, crop in the present year, than it did in the last ; 

 and that as long a succession of at least equally good crops might 

 be obtained as the cultivator might choose, and with benefit to the 

 soil of the field. Should this conclusion prove correct, a very in- 

 teresting question arises : viz. whether the spade husbandry might 

 not be introduced upon a few acres of ground surrounding, on all 

 sides, the cottages of day labourers, to, and from, every part of 

 which the manure and the produce might be conveyed without 

 the necessity of a horse being ever employed. A single man might 

 easily manage four statute acres thus situated, with the assistance 

 of his family : and if nothing were taken away from the ground 



