It has been said that the culture of the potato is injurious to the farm in general, and I know landlords who restrict the growth of it; but perhaps the extent of injury has been greatly overrated. The potato, it is true, makes no return to the land in straw for manure, and a large portion of that which is made in the barton is occasionally required for its cultivation; and thus it is said to consume without any repayment what is equally due to other crops: but the cultivation of this tuber requires that the soil should be moved and turned repeatedly; it is generally twice at least plowed, trenched by the spade for sets, hacked when the plant is above ground, then hoed into ridges, and finally, the whole turned over again when the crop is got out: thus is the soil six times turned and exposed to the sun and air and it is kept perfectly free from weeds of all kinds—both of which circumstances are essentially beneficial to the soil. If the potato must have manure, it does not exhaust all the virtues of it, as the crop which succeeds it, be it wheat or barley, sufficiently manifests: there are, besides, exertions made by the renter to obtain this profitable crop, that greatly improve the farm, and which a less promising one would not always stimulate him to attempt—he will cut up his ditch banks, collect the waste soil of his fields, composting it with lime and other matters as a dressing for the potato crop, and it answers well: the usual returns from corn, and fluctuations in the price, will not often induce him to make such exertions. All this is no robbery of the farm-yard, but solely a profitable reward and premium to industry. Much has been said and written about the potato; but as some erroneous ideas have been received concerning its early introduction into Europe, perhaps a slight sketch of the history of this extraordinary root may not be uninteresting,—a summary of the perusal of multitudes of volumes, papers, treatises!