INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY 115 



It requires no great preparation either for 

 planting or harvesting. It grows rapidly on the 

 rich new soil turned over by the settler; a little 

 cultivation insures its growth; when ripened it 

 may lie in the ground and be used as needed; 

 when the fall frosts come it can easily be banked 

 in a pit for winter use. 



Little care; small outlay; easy preparation 

 for food ; these make the potato among the first 

 crops to be grown when the settler locates his new 

 home. 



Trace now the influence which this one success 

 had upon a growing nation. It was in 1872. It 

 was a time when the line between success and 

 failure — between starvation and comfortable 

 plenty — was drawn so finely for the pioneer that 

 even the slightest help was of a value out of 

 proportion to its intrinsic worth. 



A crop failure or shortage, in those recon- 

 struction days after the war, meant a set-back 

 that would take years to overcome, for the 

 pioneer's only source of supply, usually, was his 

 own crop. 



Any increase, therefore, in nature's products 

 — such as the potato — in the days of the pioneer, 

 signified more to the world than it ever has since. 

 The greatest value it gave — the greatest service 

 it performed was to help the world to know the 



