276 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



months in the year. The early sorts have been 

 the reward of horticultural skill now so success- 

 fully exerted in this country; under the shelter 

 of frames, with careful management, the tender 

 young plants are made to struggle through un- 

 genial weather, and to produce tubers at the 

 earliest approach of summer. 



The culture of the potato in the rest of 

 Europe appears to have attained to no great ex- 

 tent until during the last century. In the latter 

 half of this period it was made in more than 

 one country a subject of interest and inquiry. 

 Several works published about that time, treat- 

 ing on its culture, are to be found in both the 

 French and German languages. From one of 

 these, we learn that the potato was introduced 

 from England into the Netherlands; and was 

 thence transplanted into some parts of Germany. 

 It was first cultivated in Sweden in 1720, but, 

 notwithstanding the exertions and recommenda- 

 tions of Linnieus, it did not come into general 

 cultivation until 1764, when a royal edict was 

 published for the encouragement of this branch 

 cf husbandry. 



The potato waa still unknown to the agricul- 

 turists of Saxony so late as 1740; but so rapidly 

 did its culture increase, that less than thirty years 

 after the above date, a small detachment of the 

 French army, while in that country, having its 

 supphes wholly cut oiF, the soldiers subsisted for 

 eight or ten days entirely on potatoes obtained 

 from the fields; nor was this manner of living 

 considered among them as by any means a hard- 

 ship. 



The Swiss discovered the value of this cul- 

 tivation about the same period in which it was 

 introduced into Sweden, and in a few years they 

 not only grew potatoes among their mountains 

 in abundance, but had likewise learnt the art of 

 drying them, grinding them into flour, and 

 making them into bread. A traveller in 1730 

 relates that the miller of Untersen had scarcely 

 anything to grind but potatoes; and in 1734 a 

 peasant was so well aware of the profit arising 

 from this culture, that he bought a small field 

 situated near the Swiss mountains, and in only 

 two years after paid the purchase money by the 

 produce of his potato crops. 



It is said by another writer, about the same 

 period (1770,) that during the twenty-five or 

 thirty years preceding, the culture of this root 

 in some parts of Switzerland had so much in- 

 creased, that it constituted the food of two-thirds 

 of the people. In the present day it still forms 

 a principal article of food among the peasantry 

 of that country. 



It likewise makes a very prominent figure 

 in the husbandry of Poland, where it is culti- 

 vated to an extraordinary extent. In 1827, as 

 much as 4,288,185 korzecs, (about 2 cwt.) of 

 potatoes were produced in that country, while 



4,439,399 korzecs of rye were reaped, 3,183,02" 

 of oats, 4,506,062 of barley, and 751,076 of 

 wheat. 



The cultivation of the potato has been of 

 late years introduced into some parts of India 

 with every prospect of success. In Bengal, es- 

 pecially, it has been attended with the most 

 satisfactory results. Bishop Heber, in his inter- 

 esting Journal, notices in several places the pro- 

 gress of this culture, the crops becoming by de- 

 grees more and more extended. These roots 

 were at first very unpopular, but they have gra- 

 dually gained favour, and are now spoken of as 

 being the best gift which the natives ever received 

 from their European masters. They are, we are 

 told, held in much esteem, "particularly by the 

 Mussulmans, who find them very useful as ab- 

 sorbents in their greasy messes." The following 

 observations are gathered from the same volumes. 

 In the neighbourhood of Patna many descrip- 

 tions of European vegetables are brought to 

 market in abundance; they are, however, reared 

 for the consumption of the European inhabitants 

 alone, the natives rejecting all but the potato, 

 which, though known only since the last few 

 years, may perhaps soon take its rank with rice 

 and plantains, as a substantial article of food 

 with the frugal Hindoo. It is already largely 

 cultivated in that district, but can never become 

 an exclusive crop, inasmuch as those humid stiff 

 soils which are peculiarly favourable to the growth 

 of rice, are wholly unsuited to the potato, the 

 cultivation of which must therefore be confined 

 to those sandy and drier soils, which are inimical 

 to the culture of the rice plant. In such situa- 

 tions this vegetable of English production may 

 be raised with unmixed utility, while the resource 

 of so important a supplementary crop may, in 

 seasons of the failure of the rice harvest, avert 

 the evils of famine, and diminish, in one strong 

 point of view, the resemblance between the In- 

 dian and Irish peasantry, their reliance on a 

 single article of food. The almost infinite di- 

 vision and subdivision of their farms is in India, 

 as in Ireland, a fertile source of poverty and 

 wretchedness. 



The observations of another intelligent writer 

 on the same subject likewise tend to show the 

 advantages which may result from this cultiva- 

 tion in Hindoostan. He remarks that a dry sea- 

 son is prejudicial to the rice crop, while it is fav- 

 ourable, or rather not so hurtfiil, to that of the 

 potato, and " therefore nature points out the one 

 crop as a substitute when the other fails." It is 

 certainly a fortunate circumstance that the su- 

 perstition by which the Hindoo is enslaved does 

 not shut up every avenue to innovation and im- 

 provement. No religious prejudice forbids the 

 culture of this vegetable, and therefore the na- 

 tives evince a readiness to adopt it in aU situa- 

 tions where it can be as easily obtained as other 



