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nv'rite fo long in contradiftlon to this author. I 

 ihall therefore conclude, with pleafure, by fpcaking 

 of a fubjeft on which our fentinnents are nearly the 

 fame, and that is. Potatoes. I am perfuaded, 

 znd I have mentioned it in a work nearly ready for 

 publication, that there are few kinds of food fo 

 wholefome : and there are none of the farinaceous 

 kind unfermented, of which one may eat fo much, 

 1 think them far preferable to maize, buck-wheat, 

 millet, or even rictj and one may eat almoft as 

 much of potatoes as of bread, without being fur- 

 feited ', they require no preparation -, as foon as they 

 are dug up, one may boil and eat them 5 and it is 

 certain that Europe has more reafon to blefs the 

 difcovcry of them, than of all the fruits of both the 

 Indies J* therefore the culture of Potatoes cannot 

 be too much encouraged, nor can I fay too much 

 to recommend the ufe of them -, yet there are fo'me 

 obfervations to be made, by which we fhall find. 



* We owe the difcovery of the Solanum Tuberofum, which Is dif- 

 ferent from the Convol-vuluj cauk viride repente^ to Admiral Drake, 

 who difcovered them in his firft voyage in 1578, in the iflands to the 

 veftward of theStreights of Magellan, and brought them home with 

 him ; but for near a century, they were only cultivated in Ireland, 

 and it is not more than fifty years that they have been cultivated in this 

 country, and but twenty years that they have been common. They 

 did not make that rapid progrefs in England which might have been 

 expecled, although in 1671, it was publifhed in tlie Philofophical 

 TranfaAions, No. 90, that they had been of the greateft utility in Ire-» 

 land, in a dearth which they had fuifered the preceding year, 



that 



