Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1910 — Early Prejudice Against Potatoes. [ARTICLE]

Early Prejudice Against Potatoes.

The way of the potato was said to have been barred by the prejudice that It was never mentioned in the Bible. In the Lothlans it came In about 1740, the year of the famine, from Ireland, but was confined to gardens till about 1754, when It was planted In fields about Aberlady. By the close of the century it was a general article of diet. Ramsay says that George Henderson went about 1750 for a bag of potatoes to Kilsyth, where the Irish method of field culture had lately been tried, and introduced the potato Into Mentleth, where a few had been known, but only In‘kale yards. The old folks, however, did not take kindly to the new food. Old George Bachop, one of the Ochtertyre tenants, when told by his wife that she had potatoes for supper said: “Tattles! Tattles! I never Bupped on them a’ my dayß and winna the nlcht. Gle them to the herd and get me sowens.” It Is significant that Burns, who sings the praises of kale and porridge and haggis, should have nothing to say of the potato.— Blackwood’s Magazine.