Indigenous Potatoes of North America. 143 



The original habitat of the potato has been discovered as being in two re- 

 gions equi-distant from the equator, north and south, and deductions present- 

 ed implying that the northern species of Arizona and New Mexico should be 

 expected to give us of the Northern Hemisphere a better, stronger tuber, 

 than the long-cultivated foreigner from the low sea coast of Chili. 



The true nature of the potato is described as being in no sense a root, but 

 a tuber, the condensed terminal portion of a branch or subterranean stem, 

 and that the yearly planting of these tubers but continues the perennial hfe 

 of a plant that first germinated perhaps ages ago. 



The phenomenon of bud-variation is closely connected with the foregoing 

 statement, for many of our common varieties are but sports of peculiar cul- 

 tivation, liable at any time to revert to former conditions. Variation from 

 the seed is known to be more nearly permanent. 



The mischievous practice of cutting the tubers for seed-planting is vehe- 

 mently condemned as tending to the ultimate degeneration of the plant, and 

 inferences drawn that, though the potato continues to give fair crops after 

 such treatment, it only proves what great natural vigor and power of resist- 

 ance this wonderful plant possesses, and what Christian forbearance it dis- 

 plays when thus vilely assassinated decade after decade. 



Its enemies of the insect world are discussed, and the opinion of learned 

 entomologists given that the chief enemy, the Colorado beetle {Doryphora 

 decem-lineata), was developed from a harmless insect. He came into promi- 

 nence when the cultivation of the potato was extended westward into the 

 Rocky Mountains, where, perhaps, for ages this now terrible little striped 

 bug, acting upon the divinely ordained system of checks and balances in na- 

 ture, had been quietly and contentedly feeding upon indigenous species of 

 the Solanum family. The new and very nearly similar plants of the potato 

 being furnished in great abundance, in fact intruded upon its pasture 

 grounds, the insect was forced to feed upon them, acquired an appetite for 

 them, multiplied prodigiously in proper ratio to food supply, and became a 

 forced emigrant, journeying eastward, following along the potato fields 

 almost unperceived until he reached the Mississippi valley in 1859, thence 

 swarming over to New York and New England, and finally half frightening 

 Europe out of her senses. 



Its diseases have been descanted upon, particularly the great potato blight 

 of 1845, and the four following years; a disaster that in Europe doomed to 

 lingering death by starvation multitudes of people, especially in Ireland ; re- 

 lieved at last by a distribution of wheat and corn at an expense to the Brit- 

 ish government of £10,000,000 sterUng,and of alike large sum from America, 



The causes of this great and sudden decay of the potato crop are inquired 

 into and its importance and the difficulty of solution comprehended by the 

 statement that the potato rot has proven the greatest enigma of the 19th 

 century, and that it has given origin to the largest amount of literature the 

 world contains written upon a single topic. 



In 1873 the Earl of Cathcart, England, offered a prize of £100 for the best 



