390 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
attended with greater difficulty. The prejudices which existecJ 
against its general use were, however, combated with energy by 
certain men devoted to the public welfare, such as Duhamel du 
Monceau, Inspector-General of Naval Construction, Mgr. du 
Barral, Bishop of Castres, and the Minister Turgot himself. It 
was reserved, however, to Monsieur Parmentier to succeed where 
so many able men had failed, and his success was due above 
all things to his perseverance and the tact with which he used 
his intimate knowledge of the character of les Parisiens, 
Instead of trying to convince them by argument, he under- 
took, with the consent of the King, Louis XVI., to plant Potatos 
on the plain of Les Sablons, and, surrounding his experiments 
with an air of mystery, he had the plot guarded by a cordon of 
troops, and thus succeeded in adding to the curiosity of the 
population. He then invited a number of scientific and influ- 
ential men to a banquet where every dish was either composed 
chiefly of Potatos or was served up with Potatos as an accom- 
paniment. This proved the most eloquent demonstration pos- 
sible of the culinary properties of the new vegetable, and his 
cause was gained. During the end of the eighteenth and the 
early years of the nineteenth century the Potato made great pro- 
gress, and when in 1813 the Central Society of Agriculture under- 
took to provide, as a basis for study of the culture of the Potato^ 
a collection of the varieties then in use throughout the French 
Empire, it brought together no less than 115 to 120 varieties. 
Count Kumford in the middle of the last century tells of 
the trouble he experienced in persuading the people of Munich 
to use the Potato as food, even in a time of great scarcity. Only 
by his disguising the Potato in a kind of soup did they grate- 
fully accept his offering. 
Were we anxious to discuss the various species of tuber-bearing 
Solanums, has not Mr. Baker, in his very able paper read before 
the LinuK'an Society in January 1884, entitled " A Review of the 
Tuber-bearing species of Solanums," given the result of such care- 
ful research that none but the most rash would attempt to follow 
him in the same field of inquiry ? Or, if one wished to trace 
tlie histoi-y of tlie Potato and its susceptibility to disease, are we 
not confronted with the complete and exhaustive paper contri- 
buted by Lord Cathcart to the "Journal of the Royal Agricul- 
tni-iil Society of Kngluud," Part I., April IHH 1 
