THP: AMERICAN BOTANIST 11» 



anil he tlcclarcd ihc workiiij^nicn ought n"i id he iiuhiccd to 

 \\w (•!! Mich cattle food. 



When the British army \va> sent t<> light in I'Manders — nd 

 in \*-)\4 hut a huiuh-ed years het'ore — they ac(|nired two shock- 

 ing hahits. Tliev learned to swear terrihlv and thcv learned 

 to eat potatoes. The monks of P>ruges had introduced their 

 eultixation 1)\- compelling their (enant> to pay p.art of their 

 dues in potatoes. The farmers, seeing that the monks throve 

 vn them, hegan to save some of the crop for their own use. 



In Germany our own Benjamin Thompson, having be- 

 come Count Rumford in Bavaria, undertook to clean the beg- 

 gars out of ^Munich. When he had rounded them up he had 

 to feed them and being a student of dietetics he decided that 

 potato soup was the cheapest and most nutritious food he C(^uld 

 tmil. But he had to smuggle the potatf)es into the kitchen 

 secretly, otherwise he would have had a htmger strike in the- 

 jioorliouse- And so. thanks to the initiative of scientists, kings 

 :\nd monk.-<. and to the involuntarv assistance of pigs, prisoners 

 and i)aupers, the world got the inestimable benefit of pota- 

 toes. — Edicin E. Slossou in Science Scri'icc. 



