164 Potatoes. [Part If. 



gross 300 lbs. by 6, and you will find him with 50 lbs. of 

 nutritious matter for the same sura that John has laid out 

 in 72 lbs. of nutritious matter, besides the price of 

 288 lbs. of bread in a year, which Dick lays out in extra 

 fuel for the eternal boilings of his pot. Is it any wonder 

 that his cheeks are like two bits of loose leather, while 

 he is pot-bellied, and weak as a cat I In order to get 

 half a pound of nutritious matter into him, he must 

 swallow about 50 ounces of water, earth, and straw. 

 Without ruminating faculties how/ hevw^yto bear this 

 cramming 1 



278. But Dick's disadvantages do not stop here. 

 He must lay in his store at the beginning of winter, or 

 he must buy through the nose. And, where is he to 

 find stowage ? He has no caves. He may pie them in 

 the garden, if he has none ; but, he must not open the 

 pie in frosty weather. It is a fact not to be disputed, 

 that a full tenth of the potatoe crop is destroyed, upon 

 an average of years, by the frost. His wife, or stout 

 daughter, cannot go out to Mork to help to earn the 

 means of buying potatoes. She must stay at home to 

 boil the pot, the everlasting pot ! There is no such thing 

 as a cold dinner. No such thing as women sitting down 

 on a hay-cock, or a shock of wheat, to their dinner, 

 ready to jump up at the approach of the shower. Home 

 they must tramp, if it be three miles, to the fire that 

 ceaseth not, and the pot as black as Satan. No wonder, 

 that in the brightest and busiest seasons of the year, 

 you see from every cottage door, staring out at you, as 

 you pass, a smoky-capped, greasy-heeled woman. The 



!)ot, which keeps her at home, also gives her the co- 

 our of the chimney, while long inactivity swells her 

 heels. 



279. Now, Sir, I am quite serious in these my rea- 

 sons against the use of this root, as food for man. As 

 food for other animals, in proportion to its cost, 1 know 

 it to be the worst of all roots that I know any thing of; 

 but that is another question, I have here been speak- 

 ing of it as food for man; and, if it be more expensive 

 than flour to the labourer in the country, who, at any 

 rate, can stow it in pies, what must it be to tradesman's 



