Two of our crops not being of universal culture are entitled to a brief mention. We grow the potato extensively in our fields, a root which must be considered, after bread corn and rice, the kindest vegetable gift of Providence to mankind. This root forms the chief support of our population as their food, and affords them a healthful employment for three months in the year, during the various stages of planting, hacking, hoeing, harvesting. Every laborer rents of the farmer some portion of his land, to the amount of a rood or more, for this culture, the profits of which enable him frequently to build a cottage, and, with the aid of a little bread, furnishes a regular, plentiful, nutritious food for himself, his wife, and children within, and his pig without doors; and they all grow fat and healthy upon this diet, and use has rendered it essential to their being. The population of England, Europe perhaps, would never have been numerous as it is, without this vegetable; and if the human race continue increasing, the cultivation of it may be extended to meet every demand, which no other earthly product could scarcely be found to admit of. The increase of mankind throughout Europe, within the last forty years, has been most remarkable, as every census informs us, notwithstanding the havoc and waste of continual warfare, and most extensive emigration; and as it seems to be an established maxim, that population will increase according to the means of supply, so, if a northern hive should swarm again, or “Blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic shore” once more arise, future historians will probably attribute this excess of population, and the revolutions it may effect, to the introduction of vaccination on the one part, and the cultivation of the potato on the other.