leaving a profit of 4_l._ 12_s._ 6_d._ per acre. The produce will vary greatly at times, and then the price of the article varies too. The returns to the laborer are always ample, when conducted with any thing like discretion, and the emolument to the farmer is also quite sufficient as, beside the rent, he is paid for the manuring his land for a succeeding crop, be it wheat or barley; hence land is always to be obtained by the cotter, upon application. We have a marked instance in the year 1825 how little we can predict what the product of this crop will be, or the change that alteration of weather may effect; for after the drought of the summer, after our apprehensions, our dismay (for the loss of this root is a very serious calamity), the produce of potatoes was generally fair, in places abundant; many acres yielding full eighty sacks, which, at the digging out price of 6_s._ the sack, gave a clear profit to the laborer of 11_l._ 7_s._ 6_d._[9] per acre! But at any rate it gives infinite comfort to the poor man, which no other article can equally do, and a plentiful subsistence, when grain would be poverty and want. The injudicious manner in which some farmers have let their land has certainly, under old acts of parliament, brought many families into a parish; but we have very few instances where a potato land renter to any extent is supported by the parish. In this village a very large portion of our peasantry inhabit their own cottages, the greater number of which have been obtained by their industry, and the successful culture of this root. The getting in and out of the crop is solely performed by the cotter and his family: a child drops a set in the dibble-hole or the trench made by the father, the wife with her hoe covering it up; and in harvesting all the family are in action; the baby is wrapped up when asleep in its mother’s cloak, and laid under the shelter of some hedge, and the digging, picking, and conveying to the great store-heap commences; a primitive occupation and community of labor, that I believe no other article admits of or affords.