THE POTATO AT HOME 313 
who was to come after him, he nothing said or did 
on that memorable scene to cast a shadow on his 
lustre or cause any lover then and in the ages to 
follow to grieve at even a momentary weakness on 
his part. 
All this served to make the potato so important 
to me that when I stood among the plants, growing 
higher than my knees, in their lush-green embossed 
leaves and purple bloom, with a cloud of red and 
black and yellow and orange and white butterflies 
hovering about them, it seemed to me that America 
had given the two greatest food-bearing plants to 
the world—maize and potato; and which was the 
greatest I could not say, although the great maize- 
plant was certainly the most beautiful in its green 
dress and honey-coloured tresses, which the hot 
sun would soon turn to gold and by and by to a 
Venetian red of a tint which one sees but rarely 
in his life, in the hair of some woman of almost 
supernatural loveliness. 
The potato, then, as I have said before, was 
very much to me. How natural, then, when I 
came to England that I should have been shocked 
at the sight of my first dish of potatoes on the 
table. 
“Ts this the way potatoes are cooked in this 
country?” I asked in astonishment. 
“Why, yes; how else would you have them 
cooked?” I was asked in return; and they too 
were shocked when I said the sight of that sodden 
mass of flavourless starch and water made me sick 
