518 THE POTATO 



tor-General of Naval Construction; Mgr. du Bar- 

 ral, Bishop of Castres, and the Minister Turgot 

 himself. It was reserved, however, to Monsieur 

 Parmentier to succeed where so many able men 

 had failed, and his success was due above all things 

 to his perseverance and the tact with which he 

 used his intimate knowledge of the character of 

 les Parisiens. Instead of trying to convince them 

 by argument, he undertook, with the consent of 

 the King, Louis XVI, to plant potatoes on the 

 plain of Les Sablons, and, surrounding his experi- 

 ments with an air of mystery, he had the plot 

 guarded by a cordon of troops, and thus succeeded 

 in adding to the curiosity of the population. He 

 then invited a number of scientific and influential 

 men to a banquet where every dish was either com- 

 posed chiefly of potatoes, or was served up with 

 potatoes as an accompaniment. This proved the 

 most eloquent demonstration possible of the culi- 

 nary properties of the new vegetable, and his 

 cause was gained. During the end of the eigh- 

 teenth century and the early years of the nine- 

 teenth century the potato made great progress, 

 and when, in 1813, the Central Society of Agricul- 

 ture undertook to provide, as a basis for study of 

 the culture of the potato, a collection of the varie- 

 ties then in use throughout the French Empire, it 

 brought together no less than 115 to 120 dif- 

 ferent kinds. 



"Count Rumford in the middle of the last cen- 

 tury tells of the trouble he experienced in persuad- 

 ing the people of Munich to use the potato as food, 

 even in a time of great scarcity. Only by his dis- 

 guising the potato in a kind of soup did they grate- 

 fully accept his offering. 



"Gerarde, in his 'Herbal/ 1597, wrote as fol- 



