EARLY CULTIVATION. 19 



Still, they made but slow progress either here or abroad, 

 while their sister plant, the poisonous tobacco, pandering 

 by its narcotic effects to the sensual appetite, was at once 

 received and eagerly purchased by the people of every 

 country into which it was introduced. In 1633, we find 

 the Royal Society taking measures for encouraging the 

 growth of the potato, as a means of providing supplies 

 of food in times of scarcity of corn. In 1699, Evelyn 

 makes mention of them, but thinks so slightingly of them 

 as to say, " Plant your potatoes in your worst ground." 

 In 1684, we find that the crop was pretty extensively 

 cultivated in Lancashire, but it was not until 1728 that 

 the first field crop was seen in Scotland, where, however, 

 its culture increased so rapidly, that in a few years after- 

 wards (1732) we find it entering extensively into the 

 system of tillage crops. Difficulties, which it did not 

 meet with elsewhere, appear to have opposed its reception 

 in Scotland. The zealous but mistaken religious opinions 

 of that period militated against the reception of this new 

 plant, which was asserted to be a sinful plant, because no 

 mention had been made of it in the Bible. Thus its intro- 

 duction was delayed, and the people were debarred from 

 its use, until Thomas Prentice, a labouring man, living 

 near Kilsyth, procured, in 1728, some " sets " from Lan- 

 cashire, which he planted and sedulously tended in his 

 garden, propagating the stock each year, and disposing of 

 it upon very advantageous terms to his neighbours, whose 

 belief in its value, confirmed by the results of each year's 

 cultivation, overcame their scruples as to its origin. 

 In a few years the results of his good sense and of his 

 good skill enabled him to accumulate sufficient money 

 to purchase a small annuity, on which he lived in- 

 dependently to a good old age, dying in Edinburgh 

 so lately as 1792. It is true that the potato is not 

 mentioned amongst the other vegetables in the Holy 



