THE POTATO. 133 



was far from agreeable. The food was about to be 

 condemned through the ignorance of the cook, when 

 the accidental arrival of a gentleman who had 

 tasted a potato in Lancashire, caused the rejected 

 roots to be remanded back to the hot turf ashes, 

 till they became as dainty as they had before been 

 nauseous. 



We have no records of the early practice and pro- 

 gress of potato-husbandry in Ireland. The more 

 tardy progress and the less favourable results, attend- 

 ant on this culture in England, might induce a 

 belief that it had been better conducted in the former 

 country; though no doubt the more genial climate 

 of Ireland, its humidity, and the absence of those 

 chilling winds from the east, which are so often fatal 

 to the tender spring crops of England, gave to it a 

 natural advantage, and might perhaps sufficiently ac- 

 count for the superiority of this branch of husbandry 

 in Ireland over England. 



The early practice in this country of planting po- 

 tatoes in February was, in itself, an effectual bar 

 to their goodness as field culture, since the young 

 plants betray their origin to have been from a 

 warmer climate, by their inability to bear the 

 slightest degree of frost with impunity; so that if they 

 put forth their tender heads to the nipping frosts of 

 spring, a great part of the crop is certain to fall a 

 sacrifice. The better quality of the potato grown in 

 Ireland, and its excellence as a substantive article 

 of food among a population sunk to the lowest state 

 of poverty, caused it to be brought into general use 

 in that country, finding its way even to the tables of 

 the rich, at a period when it was scarcely known in 

 the sister island. 



The introduction of this plant into Scotland was 

 probably earlier than into any part of England, with 

 the exception, perhaps, of Lancashire. The people 



VOL. xv. 12 



