THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 61 



in 1586. The old herbalist, Gerarde, was one who grew it in 

 his garden as a mere curiosity; and being particularly pleased 

 with it as a plant, he had a flowering branch of it represented 

 in his hand when his portrait was painted. It was not until 

 the latter part of the seventeenth centuiy that the value of 

 the tubers began to be generally appreciated and then only as 

 cattle food. It took an Irish famine to demonstrate its use- 

 fulness in supporting human life, and to give to our language 

 the term "Irish potato." 



The baby of our kitchen garden is the tomato, the use 

 of which has become prevalent only within the memory of 

 the people now living, who can recall the time when it was 

 called "love apple." A native of the west coast of South 

 America, it was brought to Europe by the Spaniards about 

 the year 1583. In Walton and Brumbaugh's "Stories of Penn- 

 sylvania," a letter is quoted dated 1685, written by a little 

 back-woods maiden to her relatives in England, which well 

 represents the popular opinion of this vegetable until com- 

 paratively recent years. "We have great big love apples," 

 she writes, reciting the wonders of their garden ; "they are al- 

 most as large as an apple. They grow on a bushy plant which 

 starts from a seed in the spring. Uncle James found them last 

 summer among the Indians. Mother says they are poison if 

 we eat them, but I guess nobody would want to eat them. 

 They are just pretty to look at." 



"God does not give man bread," says the proverb, "but a 

 plow." So the vegetables as we know them to-day, are not 

 as they came from the Creative hand. Many of them all but 

 inedible at first, have become as they now are by long years 

 of culture, and the story of the vegetables is but another case 

 of the faithful servant and the talents. The forefathers of our 

 race did not become discouraged with the unpromising gifts 

 of nature, but by patient and intelligent application wrested 

 sweetness from the bitter herb and fruitfulness from the bar- 



