POTATO CULTURE. 27 



tion as their food, and affords them a healthful 

 employment for three months in the year, during 

 the various stages of planting, hacking, hoeing, 

 harvesting. Every labourer rents of the farmer 

 some portion of his land, to the amount of a rood 

 or more, for this culture, the profits of which 

 enable him frequently to build a cottage, and, 

 with the aid of a little bread, furnishes a regular, 

 plentiful, nutritious food for himself, his wife, and 

 children within, and his pig without doors ; and 

 they all grow fat and healthy upon this diet, and 

 use has rendered it essential to their being. The 

 population of England, Europe perhaps, would 

 never have been numerous as it is, without this 

 vegetable; and if the human race continue increas- 

 ing, the cultivation of it may be extended to meet 

 every demand, which no other earthly product 

 could scarcely be found to admit of. The increase 

 of mankind throughout Europe, within the last 

 forty years, has been most remarkable, as every 

 census informs us, notwithstanding the havoc and 

 waste of continual warfare, and most extensive 

 emigration ; and as it seems to be an established 

 maxim, that population will increase according to 

 the means of supply, so, if a northern hive should 

 swarm again, or 



Blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic shore 



once more arise, future historians will probably 

 attribute this excess of population, and the revolu- 

 tions it may effect, to the introduction of vaccination 



