the Potato Disease , do. 193 



ment is required. I made two trips on horseback from 

 Lisbon to Oporto, deviating a good deal from tlie high road, 

 and spending some time in the country, and found the people 

 with an appearance of comfort I hardly expected. Perhaps 

 comfort is too strong a phrase, at least it must not be 

 understood in the English sense. The country has advanced 

 a good deal since I went there fifteen years ago ; much more 

 land is under cultivation, so that instead of im/porting they 

 export grain. The potato has been introduced since my 

 last visit, and is now a great part of the staple food of the 

 people. I believe that Spain also has been improving, and 

 even faster than Portugal, notwithstanding," &c. &c. 



To Sir Walter Ealeigh, under whose auspices the first 

 but fruitless settlement in Virginia was planted, is attributed 

 the introduction of the potato into Ireland. Sir Walter's 

 intrepid spirit, and his love of enterprize, induced Elizabeth 

 to reward him with a grant of 50,000 acres of land in Cork 

 and Waterford, which he afterwards forfeited by getting into 

 disgrace with his capricious Queen : his estate was subse- 

 quently divided between three noble families, which survive 

 to the present day — Corh, Burlington, and Devonshire,- — 

 yielding an ample competence to each. Youghal, Bandon, 

 Dungarvon, and Lismore are the centres from which the 

 potato has been disseminated throughout Ireland. 



In the opinion of some, all or most of the evils which 

 have fallen so heavily from time to time on the mass of the 

 population in Ireland are attributable to the cultivation of the 

 potato, and to its general and almost exclusive consumption 

 as an article of food ; while others look upon its introduction 

 among the greatest boons bestowed by Providence upon the 

 exigencies of man. It seems certain that the potato, when 

 relied upon as the sole subsistence of a community, exposes 

 it to more casualties than probably any other cultivated 

 plant which forms a national diet. I am not aware of any 



