THE POTATO. 135 



and land for their subsistence, in the surrounding 

 fields. 



In such a state of the peasantry the cultivation of 

 the potato would offer peculiar advantages, as no 

 other substantive article of food could be raised by 

 the inexperienced rustic in equal quantities, with so 

 little risk and trouble, and without any but his own 

 and his family's labour being required for its culture 

 and after-preparation. Accordingly, when once this 

 plant was introduced into cottage cultivation in 

 Scotland, its importance was quickly recognized. 



It is understood, however, that this valuable root 

 was not, until the year 1728, made the object of 

 useful culture among the Scotch, and they were 

 then indebted to a cottager for first attempting its 

 culture. This man's name was Thomas Prentice ; 

 he was a day-labourer living near Kilsyth, in Stir- 

 lingshire, and drawing his subsistence partly* from 

 the produce of his little plot of ground. This crop 

 proved extremely valuable, and was almost instantly 

 in demand for propagating other crops, first among 

 the cottagers, and then among the farmers. Pren- 

 tice continued to cultivate this root very carefully, 

 and to supply his neighbours with the produce of 

 his crop. He was, moreover, frugal and industri- 

 ous, so that in a few years he found himself in pos- 

 session of two hundred pounds, no small fortune at 

 that time and in that place. When he had ' made 

 his fortune,' he sank his capital in an annuity, at a 

 good interest, upon which he lived independently to 

 an old age. The last years of his life were spent in 

 Edinburgh, where he died in the year 1792, at the 

 advanced age of eighty -six, having thus been, for 

 sixty-four years, a witness to the happy effects of the 

 blessing which he had been instrumental in conferring 

 on his country. 



