79. An acre of land that will produce 300 bushels of potatoes, will produce 32 bushels of wheat. I state this as an average fact, and am not at all afraid of being contradicted by any one well acquainted with husbandry. The potatoes are supposed to be of a _good sort_, as it is called, and the wheat may be supposed to weigh 60 pounds a bushel. It is a fact clearly established, that, after the _water_, the _stringy_ substance, and the _earth_, are taken from the potatoe, there remains only one _tenth_ of the rough raw weight of nutritious matter, or matter which is deemed equally nutritious with bread, and, as the raw potatoes weigh 56lb. a bushel, the acre will yield 1,830lb. of nutritious matter. Now mind, a bushel of wheat, weighing 60lb. will make of _household bread_ (that is to say, taking out only the _bran_) 65lb. Thus, the acre yields 2,080lb. of bread. As to the _expenses_, the seed and act of planting are about equal in the two cases. But, while the potatoes _must_ have cultivation during their growth, the wheat needs none; and while the wheat straw is worth from three to five pounds an acre, the haulm of the potatoes is not worth one single truss of that straw. Then, as to the expense of gathering, housing, and keeping the potatoe crop, it is enormous, besides the risk of loss by frost, which may be safely taken, on an average, at a tenth of the crop. Then comes the expense of _cooking_. The thirty-two bushels of wheat, supposing a bushel to be baked at a time, (which would be the case in a large family,) would demand _thirty-two heatings of the oven_. Suppose a bushel of potatoes to be cooked every day in order to supply the place of this bread, then we have _nine hundred boilings of the pot_, unless _cold potatoes_ be eaten at some of the meals; and, in that case, the diet must be _cheering_ indeed! Think of the _labour_; think of the _time_; think of all the peelings and scrapings and washings and messings attending these _nine hundred boilings of the pot_! For it must be a considerable time before English people can be brought to eat potatoes in the Irish style; that is to say, scratch them out of the earth with their paws, toss them into a pot without washing, and when boiled, turn them out upon a dirty board, and then sit round that board, peel the skin and dirt from one at a time and eat the inside. Mr. Curwen was delighted with "_Irish hospitality_," because the people there receive no parish relief; upon which I can only say, that I wish him the exclusive benefit of such hospitality.