POTATOES 



done that, I will add some calculations as to the comparative value 

 of an acre of wheat and an acre of potatoes. The article was a 

 letter to the Editor of the Agricultural Magazine : and was in the 

 following words. 



To THE EDITOR OF THE AGRICULTURAL MAGAZINE. 

 SIR, 



269. IN an article of your Magazine for the month of September 

 last, on the subject of my Letters to Lord Sheffield, an article with 

 which, upon the whole, I have reason to be very proud, you 

 express your dissent with me upon some matters, and particularly 

 relative to potatoes. The passage to which I allude, is in these 

 words : &quot; As to a former diatribe of his on Potatoes, we regarded 

 &quot;it as a pleasant example of argument for argument s sake ; 

 &quot; as an agreeable jumble of truth and of mental rambling.&quot; 



270. Now, Sir, I do assure you, that I never was more serious 

 in my life, than when I wrote the essay, or, rather, casually made 

 the observations against the cultivation and use of this worse than 

 useless root. If it was argument for argument s sake, no one, 

 that I can recollect, ever did me the honour to show that the 

 argument was fallacious. I think it a subject of great importance; I 

 regard the praises of this root and the preference given to it before 

 corn, and even some other roots, to have arisen from a sort of 

 monkey-like imitation. It has become, of late years, the fashion 

 to extol the virtues of potatoes, as it has been to admire the writings 

 of Milton and Shakespear. God, almighty and all fore-seeing, 

 first permitting his chief angel to be disposed to rebel against him ; 

 his permitting him to enlist whole squadrons of angels under his 

 banners ; his permitting this host to come and dispute with him 

 the throne of heaven ; his permitting the contest to be long, and, 

 at one time, doubtful ; his permitting the devils to bring cannon 

 into this battle in the clouds ; his permitting one devil or angel, I 

 forget which, to be split down the middle, from crown to crotch, 

 as we split a pig ; his permitting the two halves, intestines and all, 

 to go slap, up together again, and become a perfect body ; his, 

 then, causing all the devil host to be tumbled head-long down into 

 a place called Hell, of the local situation of which no man can have 

 an idea : his causing gates (iron gates too) to be erected to keep 

 the devil in ; his permitting him to get out, nevertheless, and to 

 come and destroy the peace and happiness of his new creation ; 

 his causing his son to take a pair of compasses out of a drawer, 

 to trace the form of the earth : all this, and, indeed, the whole of 



^Milton s poem, is such barbarous trash, so outrageously offensive to 

 *reasjzn and to commnji sense } that one is naturally led to wonder 

 how it can Tiave been tolerated by a people, amongst whom as 

 tronomy, navigation, and chemistry are understood. But, it 



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