American watchman and Delaware advertiser. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1822-1828, 1826-01-10

POTATOES.

II is some time since we have called the attention
of our country friends to the cultivation oil this mos
valuable OF all vegetables. Last year we had grea
abundance oil potatoes. The consequence was, thai 1
they fell in price then we were stunned with com.
plants verbally and by letter, on account OF The
reduction in price. These complaints stopped on,
pen, and we are sorry Tor it, Alter dilgent inquL
nv. we are satisfied that last year, we'll every
wear, for the last five and twenty years, potatoes
paid the farmer better than any other crop he raised
Those who kept their potatoes until the spring o.
tanned high prices, and, upon the whole, they paid
very welt
This year, our potatoe crop is not an average crop
and the potatoes, generally speaking, are not Of
good quality. They now fetch seventy hive GEMS
bushel in our market and are but an indiheitM
potato. II our planters had planted lew thousand
more bushels OF potatoes, We should have had album
dance of them, and they would have received I"or
money than they will now get TOR the productions
which have been raised in the place oil potatoes
Again, if more attention had been paid to the Sc
lection Of rood seed, and the cultivation OF the crop
we should not now have our potatoes not only
scarce but Indifferent in quality. Potatoes az:
neglected more than any other vegetable. SufH'
cent care is not taken TO select good seed,
prepare the ground, and tend them alter they att
planted. And when the farmer has done with
them, not one in twenty oil our housewives lN
proper attention to the cooking OF them. Under all
these discouraging circumstances, II is not 10 b
wondeie ed at that our potatoes arc neither good nG
plenty.
For some time our wharves have presented large
quantities Of Nova Scotia potatoes, Tor sale lAI
was endurabe. But when We see tU0 Monsala
Nree hundred and thirty fire hampers oil potatoes
advertised as arrived in one vessel, from EDslandi
we cannot but complain TO our farmers, thai ttt
are inauenlve 10 their own, and to our couhuy'
interest They should more carefully and mot
extensively cultivate potatoes.
We do not pretend to understand great deal
bout farming, but we DEFY human ingenuity to sat-
isfy men OF plain, common understandings, that NH
RICH: proper in our farmers, TO drive US to the
necessity oil importing potatoes from England Thu
we can grow The IN infinitely cheaper than they can
ia perfectly clear. The tythes and taxes Annually
paid by the English farmer is equal TO what ourlar
mers pay for the purchase OF their land, in fee sim
pie. In Pennsylvania we ray no tythes or taxes
and we can work cur farms as cheap EnglHi
farmers can work theirs Yet for all this, the Eng
lish are able TO pack up their potatoes In hampers
ship and transport them three thousand miles, pay
duty OF IS per cent. to our government, and hri
sell them as fast they are landed on our wharves
f We place the facts before our farmers and ou
agricultural societies. and we beseech them TO tas'
such order on them, their own interest, and tina
y Of the country requires.
We cannot prevail upon ourselves to close hl
article, without saying that the cultivation oil hemi
y and tla.c is nearly as much neglected as that OF Po
{ tatoes II these things were attended to, and ou
iron ore and coal brought together by skiiul artists
our state would, III ten years be the most wealth!
r and the most popuious in the Union
y Phita. Dem. Press.