BENEFITS AND DANGERS OF THE POTATOE. 139 



potatoes, earth them up, and gather them in, when they are 

 at once ready for culinary purposes, without the aid of 

 mills, machinery, or other preparation. 



(542.) The plant, moreover, is competent of itself to 

 supply every requisite for nutrition. It yields carbon for 

 the lungs, nitrogen for the muscles, phosphorus and iron 

 for the blood, lime for the bones, and in fact a human be- 

 ing might live upon potatoes alone. 



(543.) In practice, every man with an acre of land 

 can, by means of the potatoe, support himself and family ; 

 and, instead of requiring anything from without, may live 

 independently and careless of all surrounding creatures 

 and objects. 



(544.) As a consequence of this, a nation of potatoe- 

 eaters does not feel those relations and dependenbies which 

 bind other societies together. A man's own labor sup- 

 plies him with food, and he cares not for nor requires any 

 other man's assistance ; hence, many of the social relations 

 are destroyed ; the relation between the laborer and the 

 farmer, the miller and the baker, do not exist ; and, in the 

 end, each man is in his own person king, magistrate, and 

 subject, not caring for the assistance nor fearing the dis- 

 pleasure of any other human being. 



(545.) Nature has, however, put a barrier to the exten- 

 sion of this unsocial condition; for the potatoe can be pre- 

 served only one year, and a break in the continuity of the 

 potatoe would at once, if the above state of things existed, 

 restore the social relations. 



(546.) This effect of depending too exclusively on the 

 culture of the potatoe is fearfully exhibited in the Irish 

 people, where the potatoe has begotten millions of paupers, 

 who live, but who are not clothed ; who marry, but do not 



