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Report of the committee of the board of agriculture, appointed to extract information from the county reports, and other authorities, concerning the culture and use of potatoes
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attended to in time; and that mufſ be my excuſe for again troubling you upon this fubject. But to you nibil pbyſcci, nibil bumani, alienum eft. Adieu.

DEAR sIR,

Nours moſt faithfully, Wing, March 23, 1795. H. J. DE SALIS.

No. X.

Robert Beaiſon, E7. of Kilrie, in EFifeſbire, reſpecling ſome Experimehts on Potatoes, April 3, 1795.

SOME years ago I tried an experiment; after which I always planted my own potatoes whole. I took one of the largeſt potatoes 1 could get, and planted it whole in my garden without dung, the produce was ſeventy- two potatoes in all; above twenty of them were nearly as large as the mother-plant, the remainder of different ſizes, graduaſly decreafing to about the fize of a walnut. Next ſcaſon l planted the whole of that 19. duce alſo uncut, ſetting the largeſt in the front row, the next largeſt in the ſecond, and ſo on, diminiſhing the ſize in every row till the laſt, which was the ſmalleſt of all. By this experiment I found not only that the ſtems of the largeſt ſced were by far the ſtrongeſt, but their produce was alſo by far the greateſt, nonc of them producing potatoes larger than their re- ſpective ſeed. From this it would appear that the larger the ſeed-potatoe, the larger will be the produce. Whether the original potatoe would have produced an equal weight, had it been cut in three or four ſets, I cannot ſay; but unlels it would have produced a great deal more, the advantages are certainly in favour of ſetting them whole, by ſaving a great deal of labour and occupying a leſs ſpace of ground. The largeſt potatoes are often found neareſt the ſurface. Quere, If theſe were taken away without hurting the ſtems, about five or ſix weeks before the others are taken up, whether the fmaller ones would not grow to a much larger fize, and the produce be greatly increaſed? I was ſee a potatoe at Ormiſkirk, of the ſort called there the Golden Dab, which meaſured nine inches and a quarter