HISTORY OF THE POTATO. 
35 
article of food ; and it is not unimportant to note the 
great difference that subsists in the component parts 
of these varieties — for though, in common estimation, 
a potato may be a potato, yet we find them very differ- 
ently compounded. The influence of different temper- 
atures and years may cause these proportions to vary, 
but I give them as observed in 1828. 
Black or purple, Fibre 9| 
Prince’s beauty . . do. 15 
Horse’s legs .... do. 13 
Fecula . . . 9£ 
Ditto... Ilf 
Ditto ... 15 
Water 801=100 
Ditto 70J do. 
Ditto 72 do. 
The proportion of fecula varies greatly, and as the prin- 
ciple of nutriment is supposed to exist in this matter, 
the value of each sort, if mere nutriment is required, 
is indicated by this analysis. 
The potato may be considered as the most valuable 
production that Europe has received from the continent 
of America, and is now, as Bishop Heber informs us, 
much esteemed in the East, and regarded as the greatest 
benefit the country ever received from its European 
masters. A plant that can so climatize and preserve its 
valuable properties in such different temperatures as 
northern Europe and Bengal, where the thermometer 
ranges up to 90 or 100 degrees of heat, must be par- 
ticularly endowed, and in time will probably become 
naturalized to every region, and circulate its benefits 
round the globe. The strenuous manner in which I 
have lauded this root may, perhaps, excite a smile in 
some, who only know it as a table viand ; but those 
who have witnessed the blessings which this tuber con- 
fers, by affording a sufficiency of food to man and beast, 
will not be disposed to regard lightly such comforts ob- 
tainable by their poorer neighbors. 
Our second crop to which I alluded, and which some 
years we grow largely, is the teasel (dipsacus fullonum), 
a plant which is probably no native of this country, but, 
like woad, canary-grass, &c., originally introduced by 
some of the numerous foreign artisans, who have at va- 
rious times sought refuge here, or been encouraged to 
settle in England. Our woollen manufactory could 
hardly have made any progress without this plant: the 
constant continental wars in the earlier part of our mon- 
