IN THE FIELD 189 



courthouse, where his Majesty intended to confer a special 

 favor upon them. Great excitement prevailed when the 

 tubers were shown at the meeting; nobody listened to 

 the detailed directions, which a worthy alderman read to the 

 crowd; everybody was busy, breaking, cutting, smelling, 

 and tasting his raw potatoes. Some offered them to their 

 dogs, who, of course, refused to eat them. "The things 

 have neither smell nor taste, and not even the dogs will 

 eat them ; what could we do with them ? " was the verdict 

 of the crowd. Many believed that the potatoes would grow 

 into trees from which the fruit could be shaken off like 

 apples. Not a few simply threw their potatoes on the gar- 

 bage heap, others planted them in the most improper way 

 and in the queerest places ; and the first potato crop in 

 Kolberg was a total failure. But Frederick's government 

 looked to the execution of its orders. In the summer Kol- 

 berg's aldermen went around on a potato inspection tour, 

 and all those found negligent were summarily fined. They 

 paid their fine, and blamed the poor potato for their unde- 

 served hard luck. In the next year Frederick repeated his 

 gift, and sent an expert potato grower with it. Potato 

 culture was now taken up in earnest, but half a century 

 elapsed before potatoes became a somewhat common crop 

 on the fields of Prussia. 



Nearly everywhere in Europe the peasants behaved in 

 the same way. According to their reasoning, a black tuber, 

 which dogs and even pigs would not eat, could not be good 

 for men. 



At the present time potatoes are grown in all temperate 

 regions, from Hammerfest, the most northern city of Europe, 

 to New Zealand and Australia ; only the benighted Chinese 

 have refused to try them, although thousands of Chinamen 

 periodically die of starvation. 



