HISTORY OF TIIK POTATO. 35 



These circumstances, in earlier days, when their 

 value, and the necessity of possessing them, were not 

 felt, counteracted any attempt for extensive cultiva- 

 tion, or, probably, influenced the dislike to their use. 



However locally this solanum might have been 

 planted, yet it appears, after consulting a variety 

 of agricultural reports, garden books, husband- 

 men's directions, &c., down to the statements of 

 Arthur Young, that the potato has not been grown 

 in gardens in England more than one hundred and 

 seventy years ; or to any extent in the field above 

 seventy-five. At length, however, as better sorts 

 were introduced, and better modes of dressing 

 found out, it became esteemed ; and the value of 

 this most inestimable root was so rapidly mani- 

 fested, and the demand for it so great, that we find 

 by a survey made about thirty years ago, that the 

 county of Essex alone cultivated about seventeen 

 hundred acres for the London market. I know 

 not the extent of land now required for the supply 

 of our metropolis, but it must be prodigious. ; 



Amidst the numerous remarkable productions 

 ushered into the old continent from the new world) 

 there are two which stand pre-eminently conspicuous 

 from their general adoption ; unlike in their na- 

 tures, both have been received as extensive bless- 

 ingsthe one by its nutritive powers tends to 

 support,, the other by its narcotic virtues to soothe 

 and comfort the human frame the potato and 

 tobacco ; but very different was the favour with 



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