102 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



dictions liave been verified at least with, respect to 

 Ireland ; for it is not too mucli to assert that much 

 of the dreadful misery that has taken place in that 

 country may be traced to a too implicit reliance on 

 this root as an article of daily sustenance, without 

 any admixture of other food. 



In Morton's " Cyclopsedia of Agriculture," from 

 which I have already quoted, it is stated that the 

 large crops raised for a long time without neces- 

 sitating continuous exertion, induced a low con- 

 dition of the physical powers, which ultimately 

 produced lazy and indolent habits, exceedingly 

 prejudicial to the development of the intellectual 

 powers of the mind. While the English and 

 Scotch labourers were benefited by the introduction 

 of potatoes into their dietary, and slowly improving 

 in worldly comforts by this new addition to their 

 daily food, the Irish peasant was making no pro- 

 gress,' in consequence of his entire dependence on 

 one particular kind of food. 



In 1815 a very large extent of land in Ireland 

 was under the potato crop, and in the summer of 

 that year appeared that destructive disease the 

 potato murrain, which destroyed the food of the 

 lower classes, and threw them for support upon 

 the charity of the Government and the liberality of 

 the benevolent. 



The ffightfal misery that ensued cannot be de- 

 scribed ; numbers died of starvation, and thousands 

 who had the means and Energy left the plague- 

 stricken country, and emigrated to other lands. 



The great distress and the high price of provisions 

 caused the Government of the day to relax, and 

 ultimately abolish, the duty on the importation of 

 corn and other commodities, introducing Sir Robert 

 Peel's principles of free trade, which no doubt has 

 been a great blessing to the country at large, and in 

 all probability was the means of preserving this 

 kingdom from those revolutionary convulsions and 

 political changes whicli swept over the continent of 

 Europe in 1848 : the people of this country having 

 " a cheap loaf," remained contented and loyally 

 attached to their Queen and constitution. 



Humboldt, in his essay on the kingdom of New 

 Spain, gives the history of the potato. He believes 

 that the 'plant, under the name of Maglia, is the 

 original stock of this useful vegetable, and that it 

 grows in Chili, in its native soil. He supposes 

 that it was transported by the Indians to Peru, 

 Quito, New Granada, and the whole of the Cordil- 

 leras. Mr. Darwin states, in his " Natural History of 

 the South Sea," 1810, that he saw the wild potato 

 growing abundantly on the beach of the Chonas 

 Islands. In the middle of January they were in 

 flower, but the tubers were small and few in number, 

 especially in plants which grew in the shade and had 

 the most luxuriant foliage. "Nevertheless, I found 

 one," says he, " which was of an oval form, with a 

 diameter of two inches in length. The raw tubers 



had precisely the smell of the common potato of 

 England, but when cooked they shrank, and became 

 watery and insipid. They had not a bitter taste, as, 

 according to Molina, is the case with the Chilian 

 kind, and could be eaten with safety. Some plants 

 measured from the ground to the tips of the upper 

 leaf not less than four feet. There can be no doubt, 

 from the state in which they grow, and being known 

 to various Indian tribes scattered over the country, 

 that they are indigenous and not imported plants." 

 Mr. Lambert, in the tenth volume of Braude's 

 Journal, and in the appendix to his splendid work 

 on the genus Piuus, has collected many valuable 

 facts which prove that the potato is found wild in 

 several parts of America, and among others in Chili 

 and Peru. 



There are a great many varieties of the potato. 

 Lawson, in the " Synopsis of the Vegetable Products 

 of Scotland," describes 175 kinds, and they are still 

 on the increase: it is stated at the present time there 

 are between two or three hundred sorts. There are 

 but few plants which exhibit such an endless diver- 

 sity of character : locality and soil make aU the 

 difference. Some kinds that are esteemed to be of 

 the best quality in one place, are almost unfit to eat 

 in another. 



The potato is, like all other plants, subject to 

 disease. The two principal are the curl and the 

 potato murrain, already alluded to. The curl first 

 made its appearance in 1761, in Lancashire, where 

 potatoes had been fij-st introduced into British field- 

 culture, and had been propagated without any 

 change of seed. The name is very expressive of 

 the appearance of the plant when under its influence; 

 the leaves curl and crumple up, the stem becomes 

 puny and stinted, and the tubers produced are 

 small, and when planted propagate the disease to 

 the future crop. The experimeuts of T. Dickson 

 show that the disease arises from the vegetable 

 powers of the sets planted having been exhausted 

 by over-ripening, so that sets from the waxy end of 

 the potato produce healthy plants, whereas those 

 from the best-ripened ends did not vegetate at all, 

 or produced curled plants. It is the opinion of 

 Mr. Crichton that the curl may often be occasioned 

 by the way potatoes intended for seed are treated. 

 "1 have observed," says he, " wheneverthe seedstock 

 is carefully pitted and not exposed to the air in the 

 spring, the crop has seldom any curl; but where the 

 seed stock is put into barns and outhouses for 

 months together, such a crop seldom escapes turning 

 out in a great measure curled. If but a few curl 

 the first year, and they are planted again, it is more 

 than probable half of them will curl the next 

 season." The years 1815 and 1810 will be rendered 

 perpetually memorable as the time at which the 

 potato murrain first appeared in a serious form in 

 this country. This fungus {Peronospora infedans) , 

 according to MM. Gay and Acosta, has been known 



