FRUITS AND ROOTS.

31

the potatoe might with as great propriety be called the bread-root,as it is made into bread by the same process.

Stewed mutton and potatoes make not only a nourishing, but avery palatable dish. The excess of fat of the mutton, which, whenotherwise cooked, sustains great loss, is thus preserved, by beingabsorbed by the potatoes. It is, however, to be observed, thatwhen potatoes are used in broths or stews, they ought previouslyto be boiled, and the water thrown away, as it contains somethingdeleterious. Simple boiling or roasting is sufficient to preparepotatoes to supply the place of bread, but when they are intendedto serve .as a meal, they require something of a softening nature,as milk, butter, or broth. What a treasure is a milch-cowand a potatoe-garden to a poor man with a large family, wholives in the country ! Yet, with a little attention from landlordsand farmers, almost every man might be so accommodated. Whata source of real wealth and population ! Men would multiply, andpoverty, unless among the profligate, be unknown. Horses aresometimes fed with potatoes, and become very fond of them.With the addition of a small quantity of hay, they are found to besufficiently nourishing.

I would beg leave to recommend, both to landlords and farmers,a careful perusal of 'Earl Winchelsea's excellent letter to SirJohn Sinclair, on the advantages of cottagers renting lands. Thishumane nobleman takes up the matter in a truly patriotic light,and shows that farmers, insí^W of fessening the number of poor,do every thing they can to multiply them ; and I am sorry to say,that so far as my observation goes, it agrees entirely with his lord-ship's.

Another letter relating to this subject has lately fallen into myhands, a copy of which I shall take the liberty to insert, as it con-tains in a few paragraphs the best practical illustration of thetruths I have long been endeavouring to enforce. It was writtenby Sir John Methuen Poore to Sir William Pulteney ; and isdated " Rushall, 4th April, 1801 :—" Sir," I can prove, not by theory but practice, the benefit of plantingpotatoes on fallows. In the parish where I reside, the whole ofwhich, except five acres, is my property, there are thirty cottages,containing one hundred and thirty-one poor people. I have, forfive or six years past, allotted, free from rent, four acres of land,intended to be sown with wheat, the following autumn, for thecottagers to plant with potatoes, by which means each raises fromten to fifteen sacks, equal to two hundred and forty pounds persack, yearly, in proportion to the number of their children: eachhas not only sufficient for his family, but is enabled also to fat apig. They declare, were I to give among them a hundred pounds,it would not be of so much benefit to them ; and it is not one shil-ling out of my pocket, for I have as good, if not a better crop ofwheat from this land, as I have from the other part of the field.

" The method I take is this : the latter end of November Iplough the land ; the frost during the winter mellows it : the be-ginning of March following, I plough it again, and harrow it ; atboth which times I have little to do with my horses : I then divide