258 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



introduced them into Ireland in 1586, and planted tliem on 

 his estate near Cork. The Irish took to them much more 

 kindly than the English, John Bull loving his old dinner of 

 roast beef without accompaniment,- except bread and ale. In 

 tlie middle of the seventeenth century potatoes were little 

 known in England, being raised in botanical gardens as a cu- 

 riosity rather than an article of diet or commerce. In 1G63 

 the Royal Society took some measures for encouraging their 

 growth as a dernier resort in case of famine, and as food for 

 swine and cattle. The potato however was a plant of slow 

 growth in England. Evelyn, writing in 1699, says, " Plant 

 potatoes in your moist ground. Take them up in November 

 for winter spending ; there will enough remain for stocking 

 though ever so exactly gathered." In the Complete Garden- 

 er, published in 1719, the potato is not even mentioned. It 

 was not till tlie commencement of the present century that 

 they may be said to have obtained a firm foothold among En- 

 glish and Scotch farmers, though the market gardeners 

 around London quite generally cultivated them at the close of 

 the eighteenth century. We 'measure the life of an animal 

 pretty correctly by the length of time required to reach its 

 maturity. If the popularity of the potato can be gauged on 

 this principle, it has a glorious future before it. 



The value of potatoes as a farm crop gradually appreciated 

 in the United States, till the blight of 1845 and succeeding 

 years almost paralyzed the efforts of farmers for their cul- 

 tivation. Many thought tliis vegetable was then struck with 

 consumption and would surely perish from off the face of the 

 earth. Not so thought Rev. Chauncy E. Goodrich, of Utica. 

 He carefully -studied the nature of the potato disease, and 

 came to the conclusion that it was the result of bad cultiva- 

 tion. The constitution of the potato, he concluded, had be- 

 come weakened from long propagation from tubers, without 

 renewal from seeds, and this without proper selection of the tu- 

 bers to be planted or the quality or preparation of the ground in 

 which they were to be grown. He accordingly sent to South 

 America in 1848 for some fresh tubers with which to start 

 their propagation de novo. For fifteen years he continued his 



