Undoubtedly in some cases, advantage might be derived from the processes which he proposes, but as those plants are for the most part wild, not abundant, and would cost more than corn at the highest price, a general famine alone could induce the employment of them. Parmentier readily perceived that the surest plan was so to regulate rustic economy that famine and even scarcity should become impossible, and it was with this view, that he so anxiously recommended the potatoe, and opposed with firmness the prejudices which militated against the propagation of this beneficent root.

The majority of botanists, and Parmentier himself, have supposed with Gaspar Bauhin* that the potatoe was brought from Virginia about the end of the sixteenth century, and it is to the celebrated and unfortunate Walter Raleigh that they generally attribute the honour of having imported it into Europe. I think it much more probable that it was brought by the Spaniards from Peru. Raleigh did not go to Virginia until 1586, and we may conclude from the testimony of Clusiust that as early as the year 1587 the potatoe must have been common in several parts of Italy, where it was already given to cattle, which supposes at least some years of cultivation. This vegetable is, besides, mentioned towards the end of the fifteenth century by the early Spanish writers, as being cultivated in the environs of Quito, where it was called papas, and where there were

Prodom. p. 89.

Plantar. rarior., lib. iv. p. 79. Emmanuel Acosta.

various methods of preparing it for food In fine, what seems to complete the necessary proof, · Banister and Clayton, who have made extensive researches concerning the indigenous plants of Virginia, do not rank the potatoe among the number, and Banister even says expressly that he sought for it in vain for twelve years,* while, on the other hand, Dombey found it wild throughout the whole of the Cordilleras, where the Indians still use it in the same manner that they did at the time of the discovery.

The circumstance which may have given rise to the error is, that there are, in Virginia, several other plants with tuberous roots, which from imperfect descriptions may have been confounded with the potatoe. In fact Bauhin mistook for it the plant called openawk by Thomas Harriot. There are also in Virginia the common potatoes, but the anonymous author of the history of that country, says positively, that they have nothing in common with the potatoe of Ireland and England, which is the same

as ours.

However this may be, this admirable vegetable met with a various reception in the different countries of Europe. It appears that the Irish were the first who turned them to account, for, at an early period, we find them denominated Irish potatoes; but in France we began by proscribing them. Bauhin relates that, in his time, the use of them had been forbidden in Burgundy, because it was imagined that they caused leprosy.

One could hardly persuade one.

* Morison, Hist. plant. exot. III. 522.

people.

Nevertheless, we ourselves have witnessed it. The English had brought the potatoe into Flanders during the wars of Louis XIV.; it had afterwards spread, although inconsiderably, in some parts of France; Switzerland had received it more favourably, and to much advantage; after her example, several of our southern provinces had planted it, at the period of those dearths which occurred several times in the last years of Louis XV. Turgot especially had introduced the cultivation of it throughout the Limousin and Angoumois districts, of which he was intendant; and there was reason to hope that the whole kingdom would soon enjoy the full benefit of this new branch of subsistence, when a few old physicians renewed against it the charges of the sixteenth century.

The question was not now about leprosy, but fevers. The scarcities had produced epidemics in the south, which it was thought proper to attribute to the only means that existed of preventing them. In 1771, the comptroller general was obliged to obtain an opinion of the faculty of

Parmentier, who had learnt the value of the potatoe in the prisons of Germany, where he frequently had no other food, seconded the views of the minister by a chemical examination of that root* in which he showed that none of its component parts are injurious. He did more. To induce the common people to take a liking to them, he cultivated them in spots which were much frequented, causing them to be guarded with great care during the day only; and was well pleased if he thus induced persons to steal them by night. He could have wished that the king might, as is related of the emperors of China, have traced the first furrow of his field. His majesty deigned at least, to wear, in full court, on the day of a solemn fete, a bouquet of potatoe blossoms in his button hole, and nothing more was wanting to induce several of the nobility to plant them.

Parmentier even forced into the service of the poor all the science of the kitchen by exercising it on the potatoe, for he well knew that the poor would never possess it in abundance, until the rich should be convinced that it might furnish them with a palatable food. He declares that he once gave a dinner consisting only of potatoes, with twenty different sauces, and at which the appetite did not repine.

But the enemies of the potatoe, although not able to prove

* Chemical examination of Potatoes, &c. Paris, Didot, 1773, and an economical work on potatoes, &c. H. Monary, 1774. It is the same edition with a different title.

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that it was injurious to man, would | not acknowledge themselves beaten; they pretended that it was so to lands, and rendered them sterile. It was not at all probable that a method of cultivation by which a greater number of cattle were fed, and the quantity of manure increased, could result in impoverishing the soil; however, this objection was to be answered, and the potatoe considered under an agricultural point of view. Parmentier, therefore, republished under several forms, every thing that regarded its cultivation and uses, even for fertilizing grounds; he treated of it indefatigably in learned. dissertations, in popular addresses, in journals, in dictionaries, in works of every kind.* For forty years he never missed an opportunity of recommending it, and every bad year served as an auxiliary, of which he carefully availed himself to recal the public attention to his favourite plant.

It is thus that the name of this

beneficent vegetable and his, have become almost inseparable in the memory of the philanthropist. The common people had even united them, and not always with gratitude. At a certain period of gratitude. At a certain period of the revolution, it was proposed to elect Parmentier to some municipal office. One of the voters opposed the choice with violence. He will make us eat nothing but potatoes, said he, it is he who invented them.

But Parmentier did not desire the suffrages of the people; he

Inquiries concerning those vegetables which, in times of scarcity, may replace our usual food, with new observations on the culture of potatoes. Paris, royal press, 1781, 8vo.

knew that it is always a duty to serve them, but he knew also that while their education remains as it is at present, it is frequently a duty not to consult them. Moreover, he did not doubt but that, in the end, his efforts would be appreciated; and in fact, one of the blessings of his old age, was the almost complete success of his perseverance. The potatoe has now none but friends, exclaims he in one of his last works, even in those districts from which the spirit of system and of contradiction seemed to have banished it for ever.†

However Parmentier was not one of those narrow spirits who are occupied exclusively with one idea. The advantages which he found in the potatoe, did not make him neglect those which other vegetables offered.

Maize which, next to the potatoe, affords us the cheapest food, is also a present from the new world, although in some places it is still called Turkish corn. It was the principal basis of food with the Americans, when the Spaniards brought to Europe much earlier first landed among them. It was than the potatoe: for Fuchs delineated and described it in 1543.

It also spread much more rapidly; and, by giving to Italy and our southern provinces a new and abundant branch of nourishment, it has singularly contributed to enrich and increase their population.

* Traité sur la culture et les usages des pommes-de-terre, de la patate et du topinambour, published and printed by order of the king. Paris, Barrois, 1789, 8vo.

The article on the potatoe, in the agricultural dictionary of Rozier, vol. viii. is nearly a repetition of this work; that of the dictionary of Deterville, vol. xviii. is an extract from it.

Accordingly, to encourage the further multiplication of it, Parmentier only found it necessary to set forth, as he has done very completely, the precautions which its culture and preservation require, and the many purposes to which it may be applied. He would have wished to see it entirely exclude buckwheat which is so inferior to it, from the few districts in which the latter is still retained*.

The chesnut, which, we are told, was the food of our ancestors, before they were acquainted with corn, is still a valuable production in some of our provinces, principally towards the centre of the kingdom. M. Daine, intendant of Limoges, induced Parmentier to examine whether it might not be possible to make of it a bread which should be palatable and fit for keeping: his experiments were unsuccessful, but they gave occasion to a complete treatise on the chesnut tree and the different preparations of its fruit.†

Wheat itself was an object of long study with Parmentier, and perhaps he has not rendered less service in making known the proper methods of grinding and baking it, than in extending the cultivation of the potatoe. Having ascertained by a chemical analysis that the bran does not contain any nourishing principle for man, he concluded that it must be of advantage to exclude it from bread; he

Memoir which was crowned, the 25th August, 1784, by the academy of Bordeaux, on Maize. Bordeaux, 1785. 8vo.

The same work has been printed by order of the government with this title; le Maïs ou blé de Turquie apprécié sous tous ses rapports. Paris, imperial press, 1812, in 8vo.

† Traité de la chataigne-1780.
Le parfait Boulanger-1778.
VOL. I.

thence deduced the benefit of ecomical grinding which, by passing the grain several times through the mill and the bolting cloth, entirely separates the bran from the flour, and he showed that it furnishes bread at a cheaper price, whiter, more savoury and more nutritious. So totally had ignorance misconceived the advantages of this method, that for a long time, there had been decrees proscribing it, and the most valuable part of the grain was given to cattle with

the bran.

Parmentier studied with care every thing relating to bread; and as books would have been of little use for the instruction of millers and bakers, classes of people who for the most part are not much addicted to reading, he induced the government to establish a school of baking, the pupils of which might carry into the provinces all the best processes. He went himself with M. Cadet-Devaux, into Brittany and Languedoc to preach his doctrine.

He caused the greater part of the bran which was mixed with the bread of the troops to be excluded, and at the same time that he procured them a more wholesome and palatable food, he put an end to a multitude of abuses of which this mixture was the source.

In a word, skilful men have calculated that the progress made throughout France, in our time, in the art of grinding and in that of baking, is such, that leaving out of the account the other vegetables which might be substituted in part for corn, the quantity of corn itself necessary for the subsistence

*Discours prononcés a l'ouverture de l'ecole gratuite de boulangerie le 8 Juin 1780, par M. M. Parmentier et CadetDevaux.

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of an individual, may be reduced | more than a third. As it is principally to Parmentier that we owe the adoption of these new processes, this calculation establishes his services better than any eulogium.

Feeling a sort of enthusiasm for arts which he valued in proportion to their utility, Parmentier would have regulated, on this single basis, the consideration and welfare of those who exercise them. He deplores especially the condition of the baker, whose work is so laborious, whose industry is subjected to so many vexatious regulations, and who is sure to become one of the first objects of popular fury at the slightest appearance of scarcity. His benevolence made him forget that it is one of the conditions attached to the existence of a large community, that the trades necessary for life should have arrived at such a degree of simplicity, that the attainment of them shall require no great expense of time or money, and consequent. ly that the exercise of them shall not be attended with great profits. A nation could hardly subsist if the labourer aspired to the same consideration and emolument, as the physician, or the baker as the astronomer. And after all, it is probable that the proportion of recompense is not so much to the disadvantage of artizans, for we undoubtedly find among them many more who make fortunes than we do among learned men and artists.

Ardent as Parmentier was in the cause of public utility, we may readily suppose that he took an active part in the attempts occasioneu by the last war, to supply the want of foreign commodities; it was he, in fact, who brought to most perfection and cried up the syrup of grapes; a perparation

which might well bring ridicule upon those who wished to make it pass as a complete substitute for sugar, but which has nevertheless diminished the consumption of sugar by many thousand quintals; which has caused immense savings in our hospitals, to the great benefit of the poor; which gave a new value to our vines at a time when war and taxes were causing them to be pulled up in many places, and which will continue in use for many purposes of food, even if sugar should ever fall to its old price among us.*

These labours merely agricul tural or economic, did not prevent Parmentier from attending to those more nearly related to his first profession. He had published, in 1774, a translation with notes, of the physical recreations of Model, a work in which pharmaceutical operations occupy a larger place than the other branches of natural science, and in 1775, he published an edition of the Hydraulic Che mistry of Lagaraye, which is hardly more than a collection of receipts for obtaining the principles of medicinal substances without impairing them by too much fire. Perhaps he would not have remained a stranger to the great progress which chemistry made at this epoch, if the bickerings of which we have already spoken had not deprived him of his laboratory at the invalids. Still we may assert that the chemical examination of milk and that of blood, at which he co-operated with our fellow-member M. Deyeux, are fine examples of the application of chemistry to the products of organized bodies and their modifications.

* Instruction sur les moyens de sup plier le sucre. Instruction sur les sirops et conserves de raisins, &c. &e.