CHAPTER II. 



Cultivation of the Potatoe. 



IT was not till 1771 and 1772, that the practice of cultivat- 

 ing potatoes as a field crop began to acquire supporters ; but 

 at that time all the grain crops failed, and the famine which 

 ensued led to the discovery that proper and sufficient nour- 

 ishment might be derived from those very potatoes which 

 had hitherto only been regarded as a luxury, just as well as 

 from bread. Still its cultivation did not exceed the wants of 

 man himself. It was not till a later period that the practice 

 of giving the refuse and surplus to the cattle began to creep 

 in. But it was thus gradually discovered that potatoes might 

 be advantageously cultivated as food for live stock. Bergen, 

 in his *' Introduction to the Management of Live Stock," was 

 the first to recommend the practice of this cultivation on a 

 large scale, and the use of a kind of horn hoe to save manual 

 labor. At the present day it appears scarcely credible that 

 the extreme utility of this plant should have so long remain- 

 ed unknown, and that so much difference of opinion should 

 have existed on the propriety of raising it on extensive tracts 

 of land. 



"There is no plant," says Thaer, in his "Principles of 

 Agriculture," " to which I have paid greater attention than 

 to the potatoe. Even before I entered upon the practice of 

 agriculture, my attention was excited by the innumerable 

 varieties which were produced by raising it from seed. I 



