258 On the Native Country of the Wild Potatoe, $c. 



small space, and with great facility ; and the increased num- 

 ber of inhabitants of the earth will necessarily induce changes, 

 not only in the political systems, but in all the artificial rela- 

 tions of civilized life. How far such changes may conduce to, 

 or increase the happiness of mankind, is very problematical, 

 more especially when it is considered, that since the Potatoe, 

 when in cultivation, is very liable to injury from casualties of 

 season, and that it is not at present known how to keep it in 

 store for use beyond a few months, a general failure of the 

 year's crop, whenever it shall have become the chief or sole 

 support of a country, must inevitably lead to all the misery 

 of famine, more dreadful in proportion to the numbers ex- 

 posed to its ravages. 



Under such circumstances, and with such a prospect, it is 

 surely a paramount duty of those who have the means and 

 power of attending to the subject, to exert themselves in 

 selecting and obtaining varieties of Potatoes, not only 

 with superior qualities in flavour and productiveness, but 

 which shall be less subject to injury by changes of weather 

 when in growth, and which may possess the quality of keep- 

 ing for a length of time, either in their natural state, or under 

 the operation of artificial treatment. This is one of the 

 objects to which the care and energies of the Horticultural 

 Society ought to be directed. Under its auspices, and by its 

 means, some new kinds have been brought into notice, but 

 a wide field of exertion is still before it. With the Pota- 

 toes cultivated in South America at the present time we 

 are very little acquainted ; there is one especially which has 

 been heard of, but which has not yet reached us, known 

 at Lima as the Yellow or Golden Potatoe, and which is 



