POTATOES.

The common English or Irish potato (Solanum tuberosum), so extensively cultivated throughout most of the temperate countries of the civilised globe, contributing as it does to the necessities of a large portion of the human race, as well as to the nourishment and fattening of stock, is regarded as of but little less importance in our national economy than wheat or other grain.  It has been found in an indigenous state in Chili, on the mountains near Valparaiso and Mendoza; also near Monte Video, Lima, Quito, as well as in Santa Fe de Bogota, and more recently in Mexico, on the flanks of Orizaba.

The history of this plant, in connection with that of the sweet potato, is involved in obscurity, as the accounts of their introduction into Europe are somewhat conflicting, and often they appear to be confounded with one another.  The common kind was doubtless introduced into Spain in the early part of the sixteenth century, from the neighbourhood of Quito, where, as well as in all Spanish countries, the tubers are known as papas.  The first published account of it we find on record is in “La Cronica del Peru,” by Pedro de Cieca, printed at Seville, in 1553, in which it is described and illustrated by an engraving.  From Spain it appears to have found its way into Italy, where it assumed the same name as the truffle.  It was received by Clusius, at Vienna, in 1598, in whose time it spread rapidly in the South of Europe, and even into Germany.  It is said to have found its way to England by a different route, having been brought from Virginia by Raleigh colonists, in 1586, which would seem improbable, as it was unknown in North America at that time, either wild or cultivated; and besides, Gough, in his edition of Camden’s “Britannia,” says it was first planted by Sir Walter Raleigh, on his estate at Youghal, near Cork, and that it was cultivated in Ireland before its value was known in England.  Gerarde, in his “Herbal,” published in 1597, gives a figure of this plant, under the name of Batata Virginiana, to distinguish it from the Batata edulis, and recommends the root to be eaten as a “delicate dish,” but not as a common food.  “The sweet potato,” says Sir Joseph Banks, “was used in England as a delicacy, long before the introduction of our potatoes.  It was imported in considerable quantities from Spain and the Canaries, and was supposed to possess the power of restoring decayed vigor.”  It is related that the common potato was accidentally introduced into England from Ireland, at a period somewhat earlier than that noticed by Gerarde, in consequence of the wreck of a vessel on the coast of Lancashire, which had a quantity on board.  In 1663 the Royal Society of England took measures for the cultivation of this vegetable, with the view of preventing famine.

Notwithstanding its utility as a food became better known, no high character was attached to it; and the writers on gardening towards the end of the seventeenth century, a hundred years or more after its introduction, treated of it rather indifferently.  “They are much used in Ireland and America as bread,” says one author, “and may be propagated with advantage to poor people.”