34 HISTORY OF THE POTATO. 



haps we must except the two last, as the oat was dis- 

 covered by Bruce growing under the culture of nature 

 alone ; and he was too good a botanist to have mistaken 

 the identity of Avena sativa and Indian corn may have 

 been found. That some of them were produced in 

 those regions first inhabited by mankind, we have every 

 reason to believe, and the warrant of something like 

 obscure tradition ; but our ignorance of the first habitats 

 of these plants is the less to be wondered at, when we 

 consider that it is more than probable that culture and 

 the arts of man have so infinitely changed the form, 

 improved the nature, and obscured the original species, 

 that it is no longer traceable in any existent state. 

 There appears to be a permission from Nature to effect 

 certain changes in vegetables, yet she retains an inhe- 

 rent propensity in the plant to revert to its original 

 creation, which is very manifest in this particular race ; 

 for the sorts which we now make use of will not endure 

 the thraldom of our perversion without the artifices, 

 the restraints of man, but have a constant tendency to 

 return to some other nature, or to run wild, as we call 

 it. Man bears them with him in all his wanderings, by 

 his treatment they remain obedient to >his desires, and 

 are identified with colonization, but as soon as he re- 

 mits his attentions, the seeds perish in the soil, or their 

 offspring dwindle in the earth, and are lost. Or we 

 may say, that Nature, having created these things, per- 

 mits him, in the sweat of his brow, to effect an improve- 

 ment, and consigns the custody of them to his care, 

 satisfied that he will preserve them for his own benefit 

 as long as required ; when his occasion for them ceases, 

 or when by sloth he neglects them, they return to their 

 original creation : the earth might be cursed to bring 

 forth thorns and thistles, but an attendant blessing and 

 mercy was reserved of permitting them to be cultivated, 

 producing healthful recreation and grateful food. If 

 these are plants of immemorial antiquity, the potato is 

 yet of comparatively modern introduction, but the origi- 

 nal species from whence all our endless varieties have 

 emanated cannot probably now be ascertained, man 

 having, as observed above, almost created an essential 



