476 Of Food. 



process is better understood in Ireland, where by much 

 the greater part of the inhabitants live almost entirely 

 on this food, than anywhere else. 



This is what might have been expected ; but those 

 who have never considered with attention the extreme 

 slowness of the progress of national improvements, 

 where nobody takes pains to accelerate them, will doubt- 

 less be surprised when they are told that in most 

 parts of England, though the use of potatoes all over 

 the country has for so many years been general, yet 

 to this hour few, comparatively, who eat them, know 

 how to dress them properly. The inhabitants of 

 those countries which lie on the sea-coast opposite to 

 Ireland have adopted the Irish method of boiling pota- 

 toes ; but it is more than probable that a century at 

 least would have been required for those improvements 

 to have made their way through the island, had not 

 the present alarms on account of a scarcity of grain 

 roused the public, and fixed their attention upon a sub- 

 ject too long neglected in this enlightened country. 



The introduction of improvements tending to in- 

 crease the comforts and innocent enjoyments of that 

 numerous and useful class of mankind who earn their 

 bread by the sweat of their brow is an object not more 

 interesting to a benevolent mind than it is important 

 in the eyes of an enlightened statesman. 



There are, without doubt, great men who will smile 

 at seeing these observations connected with a subject 

 so humble and obscure as the boiling of potatoes, but 

 good men will feel that the subject is not unworthy of 

 their attention. 



The following directions for boiling potatoes, which 

 I have copied from a late report of the Board of 



