It is well known, that potatoes are the food of at least two million of people in this kingdom; and if that two million of people can reap the benefit of a fecond crop, without the expence of a second rowing of potatoes, what discovery has ever been made in this kingdom of equal utility? and yet from the underneath letters, affidavits and certificates, it will be found practicable, provided the peafantry (who are always attached to old fyftems of Agriculture, and who cannot by the moft obvious experiments be beaten out of their modes, because their fathers tilled in fuch a manner) be encouraged by premiums, to undertake the culture of them in the manner I have laid down.

About fifty years ago, we had but few kinds of potatoes in this kingdom, and it is more than probable, that those few kinds only would have ftill continued, was it not for the ingenuity of fome Gentlemen, who tried experiments in te feed of the ap le of the potatoe, from whence arofe that great variety of potatoes that we now have; but this expe

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riment though highly useful, is yet flow in its operation because, the young stocks must be transplanted, and you will not reap the full benefit of the experiment in lefs than two years; and even within that period, it will be rather local, for it will take fome years before the good kind can be felected, and diftributed through the kingdom, fo as that the public may benefit by it.

But the experiment I have made this year is fimple and efficacious; it is (if I it is (if I may use the expreffion) giving existence and value to what before had none; it is letting the poor man eat his feed potatoes, and making use of that, which for ages past had been thrown away as useless, for raifing potatoes the enfuing year; it is in fhort, adding fo much to the common stock of provifions for the poor, which should be an object with every good citizen,

In the month of April, when I began to fow my potatoes, I obferved in the heap that I had for feed, the potatoes faftened to each other by a great number of shoots, not thicker than straws, iffuing from the different B 3

eyes; thofe fhoots appearing fo early, I confidered as the ftrength of the potatoe, or rather, its firft efforts to vegetation; and it appeared to me from the state the potatoes were in, that they must be greatly weakened by those several shoots proceeding from them.

While my potatoes were fowing in the ufual manner, it occurred to me, on feeing potatoes growing where they had been stored in heaps in the field, and no appearance of any feed potatoes left, nothing but the bare shoots, without any kind of culture; and on my perceiving the runners from the Alpin, or prolific ftrawberry plants, taking root at every joint, and each joint producing bloffoms and ripe fruit the fame season, it confirmed me in opinion, that the shoots from the potatoes, if properly attended to, might produce potatoes; but a doubt ftill remained on my mind, and that was, whether the shoot when deprived of its parent potatoe, would ever fructify or produce a potatoe; I refolved however to try the experiment, and took up a few shoots of different kinds, that my fervant had thrown away, cut them into pieces about fix inches in length, choofing those that had the most

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knots and fibres, obferving to plant them as they grew, with that part next the potatoe downwards.

I made the fervant make two drills oftwentyeight feet in length, which I had prepared for parfnips,and planted each shoot about fix inches afunder, covered them with earth about an inch, each drill two feet afunder, and gave di rections, that if they grew, to earth them up at leaft a foot high, leaving about three inches of its growth above ground, till towards the first of August; these shoots thus planted, began to vegetate and get into leaf, before any of the potatoes I had fown at the fame time in the ufual manner, owing as I fuppof ed, to the ftrength of the shoot, which weakened the potatoe from which it iffued: when I found the fhoots in leaf, and the experiment likely to fucceed agreeable to my wish, I lamented, that I had not tried it in the month of March, being fatisfied from its quick growth, that the strength of the potatoe lay in the fhoot.

While this process was depending, I mentioned to feveral Gentlemen and Farmers

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the experiment I had made; they laughed at the idea, and could not be brought to believe, that a fingle potatoe would ever grow from the shoots; but I was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would not commit the management of the process to the fervant alone, but paid fome little attention to it myself, left thofe Gentlemen who laughed at my idea, might turn their laughter against the ideal experimentalift.

No doubt, the giving existence and value to what before had none, or at least, the encreafing the general ftock of food for the poor, at so easy an expense, by turning to profit, and converting to a public good, what heretofore had been thrown away as ufelefs, is an object worthy the attention of the Dublin Society, from whofe foftering hand, arts manufactures and agriculture have received fuch improvements in this kingdom,

The ufual mode of preparing potatoes for fowing, is by cutting the potatoe into as many pieces as it has eyes; these when cut are called Sets, in Irish Scullains, and are let to lie for several days, until a kind of cruft appears on the part that is cut, for the