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putrefying like a wounded common turnip. The colour ofthe roots may likewise be determined, with tolerable certainty,by that of the flowers; as the white-fleshed ruta-baga pro-duces a bright golden yellow flower, while that of the trueorange-fleshed ruta-baga, is of a paler lemon yellow. On oneoccasion the reporter sold some ruta-baga seed of his own sa-ving, at the rate of L. 256 the statute acre, or 4 s. the pound;being at the rate of 1280 pounds weight from an acre of land.In this instance the roots were transplanted, and placed verythick in the seed-bed, and seed was that season (spring 1809)very scarce and dear. This season (spring 1812) he has a-bout 3300 pounds weight, the produce of 2\ acres, and wasunable to find a market, so easily is the country overstockedby a seed of which so little is required to the acre.
SECT. III.
§ 1. General account of their culture .—As an article of hu-man food, potatoes are certainly of great importance; and itseems wonderful, to those who contemplate their extreme use-fulness, how the population of this country could have sub-sisted before their introduction into general use, which waswithin the memory of many people yet alive. From no othercrop that can be cultivated in our climate can so much humanfood be derived, on the same extent of ground *. “ And it
admits of demonstration, that an acre of potatoes will feeddouble the number of people that can be fed from an acre of
* It is calculated that the produce of an acre of oats, converted into meal, andused as porridge, will equal half the weight of an acre of potatoes, and the for-mer is certainly the most nutritive.