182 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



in with the course of general laws which men must 

 study for their life, and in which it will be found 

 that no quarrel with the arrangements of providence 

 can be justly entertained. It may seem indeed like 

 a snare laid for mortals, that first a prolific plant 

 should increase the means of subsistence; that next 

 the population should multiply according to the en- 

 larged provision ; and that lastly the plant, having 

 led to the increase of population, should itself dwin- 

 dle and leave the people to die. But who laid the 

 snare ? Providence is too bountiful in the rich va- 

 riety of its productions to countenance the supposi- 

 tion that the Giver of all good ever designed any 

 portion of the human race to live on potatoes alone. 

 The fact of ill health resulting from such fare the 

 very structure of man's frame and the varied bounty 

 of nature's gifts conspire to prove that disorder has 

 been introduced into the economy of nature, when 

 human beings have laid their plan of life so low as 

 that which befits only the lowest of the brute creation. 

 Let this plan be carried a certain length, and there 

 proceeds an excess of potato cultivation. But this 

 is none of nature's plan ; and with this the laws of 

 vegetable production will not agree. Let it be re- 

 membered with what vigour any plant new to the 

 soil takes the earth, and how kindly the earth gives 

 welcome to the stranger, if at all there be a fair 

 adaptation of climate ; and let it be remembered too, 

 that this mutual understanding of soil and plant con- 

 tinues uninterrupted only till there be an undue in- 

 terference with the law that insists on diversified 

 productions, and then it will be judged no anomalous 

 thing that the potato at a certain period should be 

 reduced, as it now is, to a precarious growth. 



