HISTORY OF THK POTATO. 55 



These circumstances, in earlier days, when their 

 value, and the necessity of possessing them, were not 

 felt, counteracted any attempt for extensive cultiva- 

 tion, or, probably, influenced the dislike to their use. 



However locally this solatium might have been 

 planted, yet it appears, after consulting a variety 

 of agricultural reports, garden books, husband- 

 men's directions, &c., down to the statements of 

 Arthur Young, that the potato has not been grown 

 in gardens in England more than one hundred and 

 seventy years ; or to any extent in the field above 

 seventy-five. At length, however, as better sorts 

 were introduced, and better modes of dressing 

 found out, it became esteemed ; and the value of 

 this most inestimable root was so rapidly mani- 

 fested, and the demand for it so great* that we find 

 by a survey made about thirty years ago, that the 

 county of Essex alone cultivated about seventeen 

 hundred acres for the London market. I know 

 not the extent of land now required for the supply 

 of our metropolis, but it must be prodigious. 



Amidst the numerous remarkable productions 

 ushered into the old continent from the new world, 

 there are two which stand pre-eminently conspicuous 

 from their general adoption ; unlike in their na- 

 tures, both have been received as extensive bless- 

 ings the one by its nutritive powers tends to 

 support, the other by its narcotic virtues to soothe 

 and comfort the human frame the potato and 

 tobacco ; but very different was the favour with 



D 2 



