Adam Smith on potatoes

[boyofbadgers]

"The common people in Scotland, who are fed with oatmeal, are in general neither so strong, nor so handsome as the same rank of people in England who are fed with wheaten bread. They neither work so well, nor look so well; and as there is not the same difference between the people of fashion in the two countries, experience would seem to show that the food of the common people in Scotland is not so suitable to the human constitution as that of their neighbors of the same rank in England. But it seems to be otherwise with potatoes. The chairmen, porters, and coalheavers in London, and those unfortunate women who live by prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women perhaps in the British dominions, are said to be the greater part of them from the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed with this root. No food can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human constitution."

From The Wealth Of Nations (Of The Rent Of Land Part I: Of The Produce Of Land That Always Affords Rent)

Comments

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

I read a large chunk of it last year (I bought a Penguin Classics version which looked like it was complete, but it only contained the first third). It is def worth reading: he does a v.good job of conveying his main ideas and most of them are at the very least important historically, if not always right. There is an awful lot of digressing about e.g. the historic price of silver, which is mostly dull and not v.illustrative of his theories, but my edition helpfully gave detailed instructions on which bits to skip first time through.