Worry and relief

From Michael Flinn (ed.), Scottish population history: from the 17th century to the 1930s (Cambridge: CUP, 1977), specifically from the chapter 'The demographic influence of the potato':

The potato made it possible to feed the increasing population, and the continued growth of the population in the early decades of the nineteenth century forced an ever-growing proportion of the population into dangerous dependence upon it (p. 422).

Oh dear.

The initial appearance, diffusion and general adoption of the potato can, fortunately, in Scotland's case, be documented fairly precisely (p. 423).

Phew.