On the Nature and Causes of the Decay in Potatoes. 533 
vour to elucidate those laws of nature which have enabled you to 
attain the beneficial results of your present practice. 
In describing to you the operation of these laws, I think you 
were enabled to see that science might be useful to practice by 
showing the principles upon which it went, and by enabling it to 
apply those principles in the most direct manner. It was only 
this direct bond between us that enabled me to dare to stand 
before an audience composed of practical farmers. But now I 
come before you in a very different attitude, and it is this differ- 
ence which I wish you to feel before I begin the subject which 
we have met to consider. God has been pleased to inflict upon 
this country a great calamity ; a disease has attacked and rendered 
useless a considerable quantity of one of the staple articles of food 
of our population. The disease is imprecedented in its extent, 
has to a great extent baffled the skill of the most eminent savanS 
in Europe, and leaves us in a sea of perplexity with regard to its 
future course. Science looks on, not helpless, but deploring the 
small amount of aid which it has been able to afford ; experience 
there is none — and practice without experience has no existence. 
How then do I stand before you? To tell you what is known; 
to point out to you general principles which may have proved most 
useful in the mitigation of our misfortunes, and to implore you to 
use the limited means which science does offer in relieving the 
exigencies of the case, and in exercising all the precautions which 
human forethought and industry may employ to prevent the occur- 
rence of such a calamity in a future year — to profit by the know- 
ledge of the present for our guidance in the future. 
It cannot be uninteresting to recall to our recollection the 
manner in which the potato became introduced into this country, 
and how it has gradually made itself so indispensable to a 
large portion of our population. It is known to be a native of 
America, for it has been found growing in a %vild state in Chili by 
English travellers. Its introduction to this country is generally 
ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh; but historians are now pretty 
well agreed that a slave-merchant called John Hawkins had taken 
over potatoes to Ireland in 1545. It was cultivated to a limited 
extent till 1590, when it is known that potatoes were introduced 
into Belgium from Ireland. However, the cultivation must have 
been very limited, for when Drake, in 1586, brought over a supply 
to Sir VV. Raleigh,* it was supposed to be a new introduction. In 
fact even then it was a mere chance that they were not entirely 
forgotten. Sir Walter planted them in his garden at Youghal, 
* It is not quite certain whether Sir W. Raleigh himself brought over 
the potatoes, or whether Drake did so in returning with the distressed 
colonists of Virginia. 
