168 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
SMnmcatt ^jjrMtoriat 
New-York, Wednesday, May 24, 1854. 
Bound Volumes. —We have a few sets (26 
numbers) of volume eleventh, bound and un¬ 
bound. The price, at the office, of the unbound 
volumes is $1.00. The bound volumes are neatly 
put up in cloth covers, gilt backs, at $1.50. 
We can also furnish the covers separately, 
gilt and all ready for putting in the paper, for 
twenty-five cents each. With the covers thus 
prepared, any bookbinder can complete the 
binding for twenty-five cents. Volumes sent to 
the office will be bound complete for fifty cents. 
We are having printed a new edition of the 
first ten annual volumes of the monthly Agri¬ 
culturist, which can be supplied for $1.25 per 
volume or $10 for the set of ten volumes. 
Back Numbers. —We have taken the precau¬ 
tion to print each week a large number of extra 
copies, so that we can still supply new subscri¬ 
bers with full sets from the beginning of this 
volume, (March 15.) Any copies accidentally 
lost by a subscriber, will be freely supplied. 
Specimen copies sent to any person, whose ad¬ 
dress is furnished post-paid. 
STATING IT RATHER HIGH. 
Our neighbor of the American Agriculturist 
says, that potatoes, “intelligently cultivated, 
yield from 75 to 200 barrels per acre.” Now 
we should like the names of men who raise 200 
barrels of potatoes to the acre at the present 
day ; we should like to see how large an army 
could be mustered under that head. 
It is this perpetual exaggeration—this sub¬ 
stituting fiction for fact—to a great extent, 
which creates what is called prejudice against 
“agricultural writings.” Instead of prejudice, 
it is mainly a well-grounded distrust. 
Let a young farmer buy his land and manure, 
and go to work as “ intelligently” as a man can, 
to cultivate potatoes, calculating on 200 barrels 
per acre. We do not say that he might as well 
depend on drawing a prize in a southern lot 
tery; but we do think that he stands nearly the 
same chance of being struck by lightning in 
the course of the summer; and, with mad dogs 
as plenty as they are, twice the chance of being 
bitten by one of them. Such statements in ag¬ 
ricultural journals should always be put under 
the head of “ Fiction.” 
We copy the above from the New-YorJc 
Evening Post , and understand it is from the 
pen of the editor of its weekly agricultural col¬ 
umn. As we publish no “ fiction” column in 
our journal, but on the contrary endeavor to 
make all its agricultural matter as reliable as 
possible, we will proceed to give such few well- 
attested statements of large products of pota¬ 
toes, as happen to be now at hand, showing 
that not only 200, but that in one instance at 
least more than 400 barrels have been produced 
per acre. 
But first, as to the number of bushels per 
barrel. We have just accurately measured sev¬ 
eral of the size that potatoes are usually brought 
to this market in, and find that they average 2J 
bushels per barrel. This would be 500 bushels 
in 200 barrels, the quantity stated by us which 
could be produced by intelligent cultivation from 
an acre. 
The following products of potatoes were sworn 
to before the Committees of the Ulster and 
the Clinton County Agricultural Societies. See 
Transactions of the New-York State Agricultu¬ 
ral Society for 1852, pages 221 and 377. 
Calvin Everest, of Peru, Clinton Co., N.Y., 
raised 567 bushels from one acre. 
Peter Crispell, Jr., Hurly, Ulster Co., N.Y., 
raised 554 bushels. 
By reference to the Cultivator , Vol. 2, No. 2, 
April, 1835, page 24, there will be found a letter 
from T. A. Knight, copied from the British 
Farmers' Magazine , stating that he had pro¬ 
duced potatoes at the rate of 887J bushels and 
3 lbs. per acre. We presume the writer of this 
was Prof. Knight, late President of the London 
Horticultural Society, one of the most reliable, 
most practical, and most scientific men of his 
day. He stood as high in English horticulture 
then, as Prof. Lindley does now. 
In Vol. 3, of the Cultivator, pages 165 and 
183, Mr. Knight gives the details of the products 
of potatoes at the rate of 539, to over 1200 
bushels per acre; and large as this latter quan¬ 
tity is, he stated it as his candid opinion that 
it could be exceeded. We could give other 
statements taken direct from British publica¬ 
tions if it were necessary, showing that over 
200 barrels of potatoes from an acre is not 
considered an extraordinary yield there. 
The Cultivator at this time was edited by the 
late Jesse Buel, one of the best practical farm¬ 
ers of his day, and one of the most careful of 
editors in what he admitted into his journal. 
He asserts on his own responsibility, Vol. 3, 
page 164 of the Cultivator, that 560 bushels of 
potatoes have been produced from the acre, 
which would be 224 barrels, 24 more than our 
assertion. 
In the season of 1833, the late Mr. E. Hol¬ 
brook, then residing at Hyde Park, Dutchess 
County, N. Y., raised upwards of 750 bushels 
of potatoes per acre. Some time after this, Mr. 
H. returned to this city, and built the beautiful 
residence, now occupied by his widow, at the 
corner of Fourth avenue and Seventeenth 
street. 
The Yarmouth (Mass.) Register, in the au¬ 
tumn of 1844, contained the following para¬ 
graph : “ Mr. Tiiacher Clark, of Dennis, has 
raised the present year from one rod of ground, 
six bushels of potatoes, being at the rate of 960 
bushels per acre. Pretty fair for Cape Cod 
sand.” 
The Reports of the Massachusetts Agricultu¬ 
ral Society often give large products of potatoes. 
At this moment we can only refer to one, that 
of Payson Williams, of Fitchburg, Worcester 
County. The product was within a fraction of 
570 bushels per acre—228 barrels. 
One year we produced within a fraction of 
300 bushels per acre, with the most ordinary 
cultivation. As late as the first week in June, 
we turned a piece of sod land flat over with the 
plow, planted 3|- feet apart, without manure, 
and only hoed them once. Had we planted 
them 20 inches apart, and carefully manured 
and hoed them twice, we do not doubt we 
might have got over 500 bushels—or 200 bar¬ 
rels per acre. 
By trenching the soil two or three feet deep, 
and manuring highly, or taking a soil naturally 
rich, like the river bottoms or prairies of the 
West, and planting the potatoes six inches 
apart, and then carefully cultivating them, as 
we have often seen Irishmen do, an incredible 
quantity can be raised per acre in a good sea¬ 
son. We have often heard good gardeners 
say, that they should consider 600 bushels un¬ 
der such circumstances, nothing more than a 
fair average product. 
We have somewhere read of a well-attested 
product, in New-Hampshirc we think, of over 
2000 bushels per acre. We can hardly credit 
this however, and suspect there was some mis¬ 
take in measuring. 
We think we have now pretty well substan¬ 
tiated our assertion, that 200 barrels of potatoes 
can be raised from an acre of well-cultivated 
ground; and we trust the Evening Post will 
have the candor to copy our justification, as we 
do not wish to be classed among those who 
ake assertions which cannot be proved. 
THE “NEW BREAD” HUMBUG. 
Some time since we saw an article in the 
French and English journals, announcing an 
“ Important New Process of Making Bread,” in 
which it was stated that, by a new discovery 
made by a French gentleman,—a pupil of Or- 
fila,—a sack of flour (280 lbs.) produced 540 
lbs. of bread, while a sack of equal weight, 
baked by the ordinary process, produced only 
360 lbs. It was further stated that this marvel¬ 
lous increase does not arise from any weighty 
substances mixed with the dough, as no extra¬ 
neous ingredient can be discovered in the loaf 
by the most rigid chemical analysis. 
On the first appearance of this announce¬ 
ment, although in respectable papers, we at 
once stamped it as a humbug unworthy of no¬ 
tice. We should not now call attention to it, 
had we not seen it copied extensively all over 
the country, and without a word of dissent from 
more than two or three papers. On page 22 
(No. 2) of last volume, we gave a somewhat 
lengthy description of the chemical principles 
involved in bread making, and a reference to 
that article will be sufficient to do away with 
any reliance upon the above announcement. 
We will, however, repeat here, that by the ordi¬ 
nary process, 100 lbs. of flour will produce 
about 150 lbs. of bread, not because it receives 
any addition to its nourishing substance, but 
because during the baking operations the 100 lbs. 
of flour absorb about 50 lbs. of water. If this 
150 lbs. of bread be thoroughly dried in such a 
manner as to lose nothing but its water, the 
bread will weigh less than 100 lbs., because 
some of the solid portions of the flour are lost 
by fermentation, and the flour itself contained 
several per cent, of water while in its usual 
state, which will be lost by drying. 
Now if the French bakers, by some peculiar 
manipulations, can make 225 lbs. of bread in¬ 
stead of 150 out of 100 lbs. of flour—in other 
words, if they can make 100 lbs. of flour absorb 
125 lbs. of water instead of 50 lbs., we ask, cui 
bono ? to what good ? It is the solid gluten, 
starch, and oil of the flour that we want for 
nourishment, and the value of these are not in¬ 
creased because united with more water.— 
Johnston, in his large work on Agricultural 
Chemistry, tells us that certain bakers have 
been detected in adding to flour sulphate of cop¬ 
per (blue vitriol)—a rank poison—for the pur¬ 
pose of making it retain more water. We 
