The famous nurserymen, Loudon and Wise, did not consider it worthy of notice in their “Complete Gardener,” published in 1719.  But its use gradually spread as its excellencies became better understood.  It was near the middle of the last century before it was generally known either in Britain or North America, since which it has been most extensively cultivated.

The period of the introduction of the common potato into the British North American colonies, is not precisely known.  It is mentioned among the products of Carolina and Virginia in 1749, and by Kalm as growing in New York the same year.

The culture of this root extends through the whole of Europe, a large portion of Asia, Australia, the southern and northern parts of Africa, and the adjacent islands.  On the American continent, with the exception of some sections of the torrid zone, the culture ranges from Labrador on the east, and Nootka Sound on the west, to Cape Horn.  It resists more effectually than the cereals the frosts of the north.  In the North American Union it is principally confined to the Northern, Middle, and Western States, where, from the coolness of the climate it acquires a farinaceous consistence highly conducive to the support of animal life.  It has never been extensively cultivated in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, probably from the greater facility of raising the sweet potato, its more tropical rival.  Its perfection, however, depends as much upon the soil as on the climate in which it grows; for in the red loam, on the banks of Bayou Boeuf, in Louisiana, where the land is new, it is said that tubers are produced as large, savory, and as free from water as any raised in other parts of the world.  The same may be said of those grown at Bermuda, Madeira, the Canaries, and numerous other ocean isles.

The chief varieties cultivated in the Northern States of America are the carter, the kidneys, the pink-eyes, the mercer, the orange, the Sault Ste. Marie, the merino, and Western red; in the Middle and Western States, the mercer, the long red, or merino, the orange, and the Western red.  The yield varies from 50 to 400 bushels and upwards per acre, but generally it is below 200 bushels.

Within the last ten years an alarming disease, or “rot,” has attacked the tubers of this plant, about the time they are fully grown.  It has not only appeared in nearly every part of America, but has spread dismay, at times, throughout Great Britain and Ireland, and has been felt more or less seriously in every quarter of the globe.

To the greater uncertainty attending its cultivation of late years, must be attributed the deficiency of the United States crop of 1849, as compared with that of 1839.  This is one of the four agricultural products which, by the last census, appears smaller than ten years since.—­("American Census Reports for 1850.”)