562 On the Treatment of Decayed Potatoes, f o. 
This is a conclusion that cannot be controverted ; and therefore 
we must consider — What is the cheapest mode of furnishing the 
greatest amount of sustenance in a time of scarcity. Let us look 
to the leguminous plants, peas and beans. Dr. Buckland has 
shown that peas formerly constituted an important part of the diet 
of the people of this country — at a time, too, when our forefathers 
were more hardy than ourselves — and he has written strongly 
urging their more general cultivation for the sustenance of the 
poorer classes. He has been attacked by a portion of the press 
for this opinion — who have acted in this matter not less ignorantly 
or unjustly than the peasants in France, who pelted with potatoes 
the first man who endeavoured to bring them into cultivation in 
that country. Peas, beans, or lentils, are undoubtedly the cheapest 
means of supplying nutritious matter, which they furnish at one- 
fourth the cost of the potato. Their value has been known from 
the very earliest time ; * and before the introduction of potatoes 
they formed a staple article of food among our soldiers and 
labourers, and were not then banished from the tables of the 
wealthy, t It is true that, when used alone, they are apt to cause 
llatulencc, from the simple reason that they contain a superabund- 
ance of llesh-giving principle, which, not being wholly assimilated, 
enters into putrescence, and gives rise to the gases productive of 
flatulence ; but I am arguing against the exhibition of any one 
variety of food. Peas mixed with a proper quantity of potatoes 
would not produce flatulence, and the mixture would yield about 
tlie cheapest possible nutriment. E\en the cereal crops — oats, 
wheat, and barley — offer a nutriment cheaper than potatoes ; and 
if mixed with the latter in a dietary would afford a cheap means of 
sustenance. 
If these views be just, it becomes a matter for very grave con- 
sideration. Whether we should ever again devote so much land to 
the cultivation of potatoes as we have hitherto done. It has been 
proved that it is not a cheap mode of sustaining a population ; 
physiology and experience both point to a variety of food as best 
suited for the maintenance of health and strength ; and the his- 
tory of the past teaches us that variety of aliment is important in re- 
lieving the community from the dependence on two or three sorts 
of food, and the casualties attending: their jrrowth. In this lastt — 
the economical point of view — the question is of the highest im- 
portance ; for whatever agricultural science mny do to mitigate 
the effects of seasons or casualties on our crops, there are always 
evils attending the dependence on one or two kinds of food. 
Thus, it causes an unusual demand for labour at a particular 
* The pottage for which Esau sold his biithright was made of lentils. 
■'• In Holinshed's Chronicle is the passage — " A large mouth, in mine 
opinion, uiul not to eat pcann with ladies of my time." 
