The Potato ill Jersey. 
131 
price was from Is. 8^/. to 2s. Of late an annual exportation 
takes place of 40 or 50 cargoes of potatoes in vessels of about 
50 tons' burthen ; some are sent to Portugal, and successive 
cargoes to Guernsey. 
" In the spring of 1812, the States of the Island thought fit to 
pass an ordinance forbidding for a given period the exportation 
of potatoes, and imposing penalties on the contravener. The 
privation of his market, and the reduction of price of his com^ 
modity, is still more unjust and injurious to the grower of 
potatoes than of corn. The latter has an option whether he will 
sell or retain to another year : this the potato grower has not; 
before the crop of 1812 was brought to market the ordinance 
had expired. Good care seemed to be taken by some persons 
to raise and ship off this year's potatoes before another ordinance 
forbade it. The root could hardly be sufficiently matured for 
keeping in the month of September, in which month, and even 
in August, several cargoes were dispatched. Such ill-advised 
measures as embargoes thus produce the evil they are meant 
to avert. The domestic consumption in various purposes is 
increasing. The peasantry here never entertained any prejudices 
against their use in human food. From the introduction of 
different species succeeding each other, the supply is now 
constant throughout every month in the year. Hogs are fatted 
with the root, at first given raw, afterwards boiled with bean 
and oat meal during the last fortnight. The meat of the animal 
thus fatted is not held in equal repute with the parsnip-fed pork ; 
to horses some boiled potatoes are given, and with their aid 
cows are usually prepared for the butcher, bean and oat meal 
being added in the last period. There is no dissenting opinion 
to this being an exhausting crop. The effect they have in 
drawing the land, as it is termed, must be exerted principally 
near the surface ; and, in fact, it is invariably observed, that the 
wheat crop succeeding them, cceteris jmribus, is inferior to that 
succeeding parsnips. 
" When followed by barley, the land only receives a seed 
furrow. No experiments are known to have been made in order 
to obtain varieties by seed." 
Such is the account given by Quayle, based, as he says in the 
preface to his work, upon the information given him by some of 
the most competent men in the island. 
That the potato flourished, and was for a long succession 
of years the leading crop of the farmers, is well known, and 
will be best understood by referring to the export returns 
appended to this Report. It was not until its universal failure 
that this island felt, in common with the rest of the kingdom, the 
effects of its loss. 
K 2 
