HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



79 



the year 700 ; but there is no passage in Bede's 

 works that would prove such an assertion ; and 

 largely as the potato is cultivated in that country, 

 it has not yet made out its title to a place in the 

 indigenous flora of Ireland. It appears to have 

 been cultivated and its value appreciated in that 

 country long before any notice of it was taken in 

 England; for, some time after its introduction, it was 

 planted only in the gardens of the nobility as a 

 curious and rare vegetable. 



The potatoes furnished to the table of the queen 

 of James I. bore the high price of 2s. per lb., and 

 through the succeeding reign and Commonwealth it 

 remained extremely scarce, nor did its cultivation 

 spread till more than a hundred years after the 

 discovery of Virginia. 



In 1663, Mr. Buckland, a Somersetshire gentle- 

 man, drew the attention of the Royal Society, by 

 letter, to its value in case of famine, and such mem- 

 bers as had lands adapted to its culture were 

 entreated to plant the new vegetable ; and Evelyn, 

 the celebrated practical gardener of that period, was 

 requested to notice the subject at the close of his 

 Sylva ; but so little was he aware of its importance, 

 tliat he took no notice of it till thirty years after- 

 wards, and then in rather sligliting terms. In his 

 "Kalendarium Plantarum" (the fu'st gardeners' 

 calendar published in Britain) he writes thus : — 

 «' Plant your potato in your worst ground. Take them 

 up in November for winter spending ; there will 

 enough remain for a stock, though ever so exactly 

 gathered." In Mortimer's "Gardener's Kalender" 

 for 1708 the potato is directed to be planted in 

 February ; and it is added : " The root is very near 

 the nature of the Jerusalem artichoke, although not 

 so good and wholesome ; but it may prove good to 

 swine." A writer at the end of the seventeenth 

 century admits that "potatoes are much used in 

 Ireland and America as breads and may be propa- 

 gated with advantage to poor people." 



Woolridge, who wrote in 1687, describes potatoes 

 as being very useful in " forcing fruits," stating 

 that they are planted in several places in the country 

 to good advantage. He adds, " I do not hear that it has 

 been yet essayed whether they may not be propa- 

 gated in great quantities for the use of swine and 

 other cattle." The celebrated Ray, who published 

 his "Historia Plantarum" in 1686, takes no further 

 notice of this vegetable than by saying that it 

 is dressed in the same manner as Spanish batatas. 

 Lisle, who wrote on husbandry from 1694 to 1 722, 

 is wholly silent about the potato, and so are the 

 eminent nurserymen Loudon and Wise, in the 

 seventh edition of their " Complete Gardener." 

 Bradley, who wrote about 1719 very extensively on 

 horticultural subjects, makes only a passing note on 

 this vegetable. " They are," he says, " of less note 

 than horseradish, radish scorzoners, beets, and 

 skirret ; but as they are not without their admirers. 



I will not pass them by in silence." The first 

 district of England where the potato was cultivated 

 was on the western coast in Lancashire, at North 

 Meols, about the year 1691; : with this exception, its 

 progress continued at an extremely slow pace. In 

 1760 it was known only in Yorkshire as a garden 

 plant, and in Somersetshire we must date its intro- 

 duction as an article of farm produce at least ten 

 years later. 



After this period, however, the value of the 

 potato came to be very generally appreciated, and 

 in the year 1796, in the county of Essex alone, no 

 fewer than seventeen hundred acres were planted 

 with this root for the supply of the London 

 market. 



The introduction of the potato into Scotland 

 was probably earlier than any part of England, 

 with the exception of Lancashire, for the name of 

 this plant is mentioned in the " Hortus Medicus 

 Edinburgensis," published by Sutherland in 1683, 

 but perhaps only grown as a curiosity in some of 

 the gardens about Edinburgh ; and it was not until 

 the year 1728 that it became an object of useful 

 cultivation in the country. The Scotch are in- 

 debted to a labouring man named Tliomas Pentrice 

 for the more extensive cultivation of this root. He 

 resided near Kilsyth, in Stirlingshire, and cropped 

 the little plot of ground from which he drew 

 his subsistence with potatoes. This crop proved 

 extremely valuable, and was almost instantly in 

 demand for propagating other crops, first among 

 the cottagers, aud then among the farmers. 

 Pentrice continued to cultivate this root very care- 

 fully, and to supply his neighbours with the pro- 

 duce. After a few years he found himself in 

 possession of two hundred pounds ; this he sank 

 in an annuity, at a good interest, upon which he 

 lived independently to an old age. The last years 

 of his life were spent at Edinburgh, where he died 

 in 1792 at the age of eighty-six, having thus been 

 for sixty-four years a witness to the happy effects 

 of the blessmg which he had been instrumental in 

 conferring on his country. 



Eor some time, it appears that the cultivation of 

 the potato was confined to the cottagers and small 

 farmers of Scotland, but it found no favour with 

 the higher classes ; indeed, some of the Scotch 

 were hostile to the use of this root on religious 

 grounds. "Potatoes," said they, "are not inen- 

 tioned in the Bible." Thus the same anathema 

 was pronounced against them as against the 

 spinning-wheel and the corn-farmers. 



The year 1742, which was long remembered in 

 Scotland as the " dear year," gave an impulse to 

 the cultivation of the potato, aud indeed to the 

 whole agriculture of the country; so that during 

 the latter half of the eighteenth century the 

 practice and science of husbandry made much 

 more rapid progress iu Scotland than in England. 



