346 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



tubers were roasted and steeped in wine and sugar, or baked with 

 marrow and spices. The Royal society in 1663, took measures 

 for encouraging the cultivation of the potato, with a vicAv of pre- 

 venting famine ; and it seems not a little singular that in our own 

 times, the extensive cultivation of the potatoe in Ireland produced 

 the ver}' evil they desired to remedy. The failure was no doubt 

 owing to the want of fresh stock. Some writers of those early 

 days thought they were only fit food fot swine. Another says 

 they make good food for poor people. He left quite a numerous 

 progeny ; for there are a good manj^ people just now who think 

 potatoes almost too good for poor folks. Evelyn, who wrote in 

 1699, says : "Plant them in your poorest ground ; take them up 

 in November for winter U3e, and there will yet remain stock 

 enough in the ground for the next season." This shiftless way of 

 raising potatoes was in practice in Scotland. For manj' years, the 

 Irish seem to have been the only people who appreciated the true 

 value of this esculent; for nearly three hundred years the potato 

 has been their chief staple. It has been said that a people who use 

 the potato as their chief food soon degenerate. This theory is not 

 well founded, for nowhere can there be found a more hardy race 

 than the Irish. Years of oppression and misrule have done more 

 harm to Ireland than the extensive cultivation of the potato. The 

 tubers of the potato, having no peculiarit}^ of taste, consisting 

 chiefly of starch, approach nearer to the nature of a flour or the 

 farina of grain than any other vegetable root. For this reason it 

 is almost universally liked, and can be used longer than any other 

 vegetable without becoming unpalatable. Among the many uses 

 of the potato in former times was the manufacture of wine and 

 spirits. Still, as wine is made of old boot-legs, and whisky out of 

 printers' rollers, we need not be surprised at potatoes making good 

 wine. Some genius in France has discovered fifty difTereut Avays 

 of cooking the potato. 



Converting City Garbage into Manure. 

 Dr. Thompson of Auburn, N, Y., addressedthe Club on this subject. 

 He said he had made arrangements with the authorities of this city 

 for disposing of decaying matter. The plan is to furnish a per- 

 fectly air-tight safe to every house in which refuse and oftensive 

 matter is to be deposited ; it will be sprinkled with charcoal and 

 sulphuric acid, or other preparation, according to the kind of 

 manure required, which will deodorize the mass and produce no 



