29 AUGUST 1846, Page 2

The Accourrts of the hariest and the potato crop are

in a con- trastio markedns almost to imply a lesson, that the root is the worst, -the grain the best relianoe for the national food. The potato fails universally in Ireland, in England and Scotland, on the Continent. The failure is more absolute than it was last year. There is a striking difference in the durability of plants produced by human skill. It is notorious that many—such as celebrated varieties of the apple—have become extinct or worth- less in England; the Standard calls to mind that Ireland has witnessed a total extinction of the plane-tree ; the potato decays before our eyes. On the other hind, wheat seems to defy the mutations of time : grain found i n the hands of mummies that were living men in the Biblical ages, if sown now, flourishes as well as any of the contemporarl- varieties, from which it is dis- tinguishable only for the purp-seof scientific classification ; attest- ing the immortality of the great staple food for man.