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against the possibility of the loss of the potato, even on peat 

 soils, the danger of such loss was comparatively small. It 

 was well known to every gentleman who heard him that the 

 peat hogs of this country and of Ireland possess a strong 

 antiseptic power, capable of resisting putrefaction, and of 

 preserving the trunks, branches, and even the leaves of trees, 

 which are buried in them for centuries. This power acted 

 as a preservative of the growing plants against corruption 

 or rot. 



" At the same time, however, that it was desirable to do 

 every thing that was possible, to diminish tbe rudeness of the 

 shock produced by the failure of the potato, by which the 

 great mass of the Irish poor had been suddenly thrown upon 

 the public works furnished by the Government, as the only 

 means of saving themselves from starvation, it could not be 

 doubted that the cultivation of the potato would greatly di- 

 minish for some yeai's. The enormous expense of the seed, 

 which was likely to be three times the usual price, would, itself, 

 be sufficient to produce this result, even if the cultivation was 

 less hazardous than it is ; and these two causes united would 

 inevitably reduce the cultivation within very narrow limits for 

 some years. 



"As far as England and the Lowlands of Scotland were 

 concerned, this would be no great evil, as wages were in 

 general sufficiently high to enable the labouring classes to 

 purchase better food. As for those persons who cultivated 

 the potato extensively for sale, the only result to them would 

 be that they would cultivate the turnip, and so pass gradually 

 into the system of husbandry practised in Lincolnshire and 

 the Lothians, which was probably the most perfect, and 

 most productive system in the world, or which, at least, might 

 easily be made so, by introducing into it one or two of the 

 crops grown by the Flemings. 



" Unfortunately the failure of the potato crop threatened 



