try whence
potatoes are exported; and could the affection be stopped from
spreading further than this, there would still be a sufficiency of
potatoes for the consumption of _human beings_, as the crop is
acknowledged to be a large one in the best districts. Much, however,
depends upon our ability to arrest the affection, or its cessation
from other causes.

It is known that rotten potatoes, like rotten turnips, when left in
heaps in contact with sound ones, will cause the latter to rot. Aware
of this fact, farmers have, this last year, caused the potatoes in the
heaps, as soon as the lifting of the crop was over, to be individually
examined, and placed the sound ones in narrow, low pits, mixed with
some desiccating substance, and covered with straw and earth. When the
pits were opened for examination, the rot was found to have spread
very much, in consequence of the dampness and heat which was so
diffused throughout the pits. This is an effect that might have been
anticipated. Had the precaution been used of taking up the crop in
small quantities at a time, or of spreading the potatoes on the ground
when the weather was fair, or in sheds when wet--and of allowing them
to be exposed to the air until they had became tolerably firm and dry;
and had the sound potatoes been then selected by hand, piled together,
and afterwards put into smaller pits, it is probable that a much less
proportion of any crop that was taken up would have been lost. Such a
plan, no doubt, would have caused a protracted potato harvest, but the
loss of time at that period, in performing the necessary work of
selection, is a small consideration compared with an extensive injury
to the crop. It is no doubt desirable to have the potato land ploughed
for wheat as soon as possible after the potatoes have been removed;
but there is no more urgency in ploughing potato than in ploughing
turnip land for wheat; and, at any rate, it is better to delay the
ploughing of the potato land for a few days, than run the risk of
losing a whole crop of so excellent an esculent.

I may here mention an experiment in regard to the potato, which shows
that a larger crop has been received by planting the sets in autumn
than in spring. Those who have tried this system on a large scale say,
that the increase is in the ratio of 111 to 80 bolls per acre. If this
is near the truth, it would indicate, that the sets may safely be
entrusted to lie in the ground all winter upon the