equal generosity, are prompt to place a luxury
upon the rich man's gravy, or a heap of food
beside the poor man's salt. The Potato family
has been for many years one of the noblest
benefactors to the human colony, and when it
was prevented lately by ill-health from the
fulfilment of its good intentions, great was the
anxiety of men, and many were the bulletins
of health sought for and issued. Its constitution
still appears to be a little shaken, and we
all still hope for the complete recovery of so
sincere and influential a friend.

The family seat of the Potatoes is well
known to be in America. They are a
comparatively new race in our own country, since
they did not come over until some time after
the Conqueror. The genealogists have nearly
settled, after much discussion, that all
members of this family spread over the world, are
descended from the Potatoes of Chili. Their
town seat is in the neighbourhood of
Valparaiso, upon hills facing the sea. The
Potatoes were early spread over many
portions of America, on missions for the
benefit of man, who had not been long in
discovering that they were friends worth cultivating
properly. It is said, that the first Potato
who visited Europe, came over with Sir
Francis Drake, in 1573; it is said, also, that
some of the family had accompanied Sir John
Hawkins, in 1563; it is certain that a body
of Potatoes quitted Virginia, in 1586, and
came to England with Sir Walter Raleigh.
M. Dunal, who has written an elaborate
history of the Potato family, shows it to be
extremely probable that, before the time of
Raleigh, a settlement of Potatoes had been
formed in Spain. Reaching England in 1586,
the benevolent Potato family was welcomed
into Belgium in 1590. In 1610, the first
Potatoes went to Ireland, where they
eventually multiplied and grew, to form one of the
most important branches of this worthy race.
The Scotch Potatoes date their origin as a
distinct branch, from 1728. It was at dates
not very different from this, that other
branches of the family settled in Germany.
The Potatoes of Switzerland first settled in
1730, in the Canton Berne. In 1738, the
thriving family extended its benevolent
assistance to the Prussians; but it was not
until 1767 that its aid was solicited in
Tuscany. In France, the kindly efforts of this
family were not appreciated, until, in the
middle of the last century, there arose a man,
Parmentier, who backed the introduction of
Potatoes into France with recommendations
so emphatic, that it was designed to impute
to him the interest of near relationship, not
Indeed by calling him Potato, but by calling
Potatoes by his name, Parmentiers. The
benevolent exertions made by the Potato
family on behalf of France, during the famine
of 1793, completely established it in favour
with the grateful people.

Potatoes, though so widely spread, are
unable to maintain their health under too
warm a climate. On the Andes, they fix
their abode at a height of ten or thirteen
thousand feet ; in the Swiss Alps, they are
comfortable on the mountain sides, and spread
in Berne to a height of five thousand feet, or
not very much less. Over the north of
Europe, the Potato family extends its labours
farther on into the cold than even barley,
which is famous as the hardiest of grain.
There are Potatoes settled in Iceland, though
that is a place in which barley declines to live.
The Potato is so nutritious, and can be
cultivated with so little skill and labour, that
it tempts some nations to depend solely on
it for sustenance. The recent blight, especially
in Ireland, consequently occasioned the most
disastrous effects.

The BARLEY branch of the Grass family
has, however, a large establishment in
Scotland, even to the extreme north, in the
Orkneys, Shetland, and, in fact, even in the
Faroe Islands. They who are in the secrets
of the Barleys, hint that they would be very
glad to settle in the southern districts of
Iceland — say about Reikiavik — if it were not
for the annoyance of unseasonable rains. In
Western Lapland, there may be found heads
of the house of Barley as far north as Cape
North, which is the most northern point of
the continent of Europe. It has a settlement
in Russia on the shores of the White Sea,
beyond Archangel. Over a great mass of
northern Siberia, no Barley will undertake to
live, and as the Potatoes have found their
way into such barren districts only here and
there, the country that is too far north for
Barley, is too far north for agriculture. There
the people live a nomad life, and owe obligation
in the world of plants to lichens for their
food, or to such families as offer them the
contribution of roots, bark, or a few scraps
of fruit.

It is not much that Barley asks as a
condition of its gifts to any member of the
human colony. It wants a summer heat,
averaging about forty-six degrees, and it does
not want to be perpetually moistened. If it
is to do anything at all in moist places, like
islands, it must have three degrees added to
the average allowance of summer heat, with
which it would in other places be content.
As for your broiling hot weather, no Barley
will stand it. Other grasses may tolerate the
Tropics if they please; Barley refuses to be
baked while it is growing. The Barleys are
known to be settled as an old native family in
Tartary and Sicily, two places very far apart.
Their pedigree, however, and indeed the
pedigrees of all the branches of the great Grass
family, must remain a subject wrapt in
uncertainty, buried in darkness, and lost in a great
fog of conjecture.

We find Oats spread over Scotland to the
extreme north point, and settled in Norway
and Sweden to the latitudes sixty-five and
sixty-three. Both Oats and Rye extend, in
Russia, to about the same latitude of sixty-