1 EARLY POTATO/ 197 



Potato. The introduction of this invaluable root 

 to our island the prejudices which were long en- 

 tertained respecting it its culture carried on by the 

 most defective process for more than a century, and 

 the consequent slowness with which it reached the 

 families of the poor to enrich them (whilst the im- 

 poverishing tobacco plant, brought from America at 

 the same time, spread with rapidity over Europe) 

 its now almost universal cultivation, affording the 

 chief subsistence of so many human beings, and pro- 

 ducing so great effects on the physical and moral 

 condition of the empire might constitute the mate- 

 rials of a history, due to this plant more than to any 

 other production of the vegetable kingdom as yet 

 known in these realms, or perhaps in the whole 

 world. But how to have the earliest and how to 

 have the best crops are the only objects at present 

 in view. The former is promoted by very early 

 planting, as may be judged by observing the appear- 

 ance in spring of such stray roots as have escaped 

 the severity of winter. But this advantage of an 

 early start is not without certain hinderances: when 

 the leaves are frost-bitten the plant is more than 

 retarded the nature of its growth is changed; and 

 again, the soil, exposed after early planting to the 

 spring rains, gets too hard for the very delicate 

 fibres of the roots, and becomes also much colder by 

 reason of its compactness. To have then, both the 

 advantage of early growth and freedom from these 

 evils, in January lay some cuttings or whole pota- 

 toes, of the ash-leaved sort or of the early-frame, 



