which accrued to the Highlanders from the adventitious value of kelp, indirectly entailed upon them ultimately hardships and misfortunes greater than ever they experienced before, and retarded considerably their progress towards permanent improvement. By all accounts the potato, introduced from Chili into Spain about the middle of the sixteenth century, was first introduced into Ireland by or through the instrumentality of Sir Walter Raleigh about the end of that century. From Ireland it seems shortly after to have been introduced into England, although its cultivation did not become anything like common till more than a century afterwards, and its use seems to have been restricted to the upper classes.[80] Its value as a staple article of food for the poorer classes remained for long unappreciated. According to the Old Statistical Account of Scotland, potatoes were first cultivated in the fields there in the county of Stirling, in the year 1739, although for long after that, in many parts of the country, they were planted only as a garden vegetable. According to Dr Walker, potatoes were first introduced into the Hebrides from Ireland in the year 1743, the island of South Uist being the first to welcome the strange root, although the welcome from the inhabitants seems to have been anything but hearty. The story of its introduction, as told by Dr Walker,[81] is amusing, though somewhat ominous when read in the light of subsequent melancholy facts. “In the spring of that year, old Clanronald was in Ireland, upon a visit to his relation, Macdonnel of Antrim; he saw with surprise and approbation the practice of the country, and having a vessel of his own along with him, brought home a large cargo of potatoes. On his arrival, the tenants in the island were convened, and directed how to plant them, but they all refused. On this they were all committed to prison. After a little confinement, they agreed, at last, to plant these unknown roots, of which they had a very unfavourable opinion. When they were raised in autumn, they were laid down at the chieftain’s gate, by some of the tenants, who said, the Laird indeed might order them to plant these foolish roots, but they would not be forced to eat them. In a very little time, however, the inhabitants of South Uist came to know better, when every man of them would have gone to prison rather than not plant potatoes.”