One good effect of this plan would be,
that these stores would regulate the prices of oatmeal in the market,
and would prevent the ruin of the farmers by extortioners and
meal-mongers, and insure to them, if they must unfortunately buy food,
_that_ food at a reasonable rate. Mr. Foster adds: "These three plans
will, if carried out, I feel assured by all that I have seen and heard,
insure, first, _the arrest of the disease in the potatoes_, and the
preservation of food for the _people_; secondly, _seed for next year_;
and lastly, if there should occur the calamity of a famine, _there will
be a substituted food secured for the people at a reasonable price_."
All these suggestions were well worthy of serious and immediate
attention when they were written, and although every mode of saving the
tuber was, to a great extent, a failure, the mode suggested above was at
least as good as any other, and far simpler than most of them. But the
third suggestion, about a county organization to keep the food in the
country was admirable, practicable, effective; but as the poorer
classes, from various causes, could not, and, in some instances, would
not carry out any organized plan, the _Times_' Commissioner warns the
Government to look to it.
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