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will show great and substantial progress. If it be 

 true, that men have been slow to adopt changes in 

 modes of tillage and articles of food, it is equally true 

 that perseverance has in the end conquered. I will 

 take an illustration from the history of that common 

 vegetable, the potato, for the time blighted, but not 

 lost. This, as all know, is indigenous to the western 

 continent, and I will allude to the difficulty of its in- 

 troduction into Europe as an article of food for man, 

 simply for the purpose of showing how much may be 

 accomplished by earnest and patient effort. It has 

 been sujDposed, erroneously, I believe, that Sir AValter 

 Raleigh first carried this vegetable from Virginia to 

 Europe, about the end of the sixteenth century. It is 

 a native, however, of South America, and was earlier 

 known to the Spaniards, who were probably its first 

 importers into the old world. It met with a various 

 reception in different parts of Europe. As early as 

 1587 potatoes were common in Italy, where they were 

 used as food for cattle. The natives of the " Green 

 Isle," however, were among the first, it would seem, to 

 give them a hearty welcome, and hence at an early 

 period we find them called " Irish potatoes." France 

 began by proscribing them. In Burgundy, they were 

 denounced for their supposed tendency to produce 

 " leprosy." It required two centuries to overcome 

 " puerile prejudices" against them. The " old physi- 

 cians," from time to time, reiterated their charges 

 against them. Dismissing the accusation that lej)rosy 

 came from the use of them, facts proving its absurdity, 

 tliey still persisted in asserting that they were preju- 

 dicial to health. They produced " fevers," it was said. 

 The epidemics caused by fiimine were attributed to 

 the use of potatoes ! But there came a man of science 

 and a philanthropist, M. Parmentier by name, who 



