in the cultivation of potatoes. So long as I practised setting my crop with small potatoes, the cullings of my potato bins, my crops degenerated, grew less and less for several years, and finally run entirely out.—I changed my practice, and the result has been a continued improvement for near ten years, both in quantity and quality. My practice has been to select the largest, soundest, and best potatoes for seed, to cut them into 4 quarters, and plant 4 pieces in each hill in a square of about 9 inches. The results have been every way satisfactory. My potatoes have been large, constantly improving in size, earlier, better, and more abundant from year to year. I have never been nice enough to weigh my seed, to ascertain exactly whether a potato of one ounce or two ounces be as perfect a root as one of 6 or 12 ounces. My experience both in planting and in distillation has left on my mind a strong impression that small unripe seed is very improper, and very unprofitable. I am aware that many farmers hold firmly that small seed potatoes are as good as large ones; but I also know that I have sold potatoes to these men at 5 and 6 shillings per bushel, and some of them have been convinced that good seed was an object even at those prices. In the south I am aware that it is the practice almost uniformly to plant small sweet potatoes. But I am fully persuaded it is an error. To this cause I think may be justly attributed the decrease and deterioration in the crops of this valuable root.

Middlesex, August 3, 1820.

[Plough Boy.