THE POTATO SAFFORD 531 



little regarded by their P^nglish neighbors, a barrel or two being considerpd a 

 supply for a family. But its value as food for man and for ]>east became 

 at length more generally known, and who can now estimate the full advantage 

 of its cultivation to this country? The folhtwing well-authenticated fact will 

 show how little known to the community at large the potato must have been. 

 A few of the settlors had passed the winter previous to their establishment 

 here in Andover, INIass. On taking their departure from one of the families, 

 with whom they had resided, they left a few potatoes for seed. The potatoes 

 were accordingly planted, came up and flourished well; blossomed and produced 

 balls, which the family supposed were the fruit to be eaten. They cooked the 

 balls in various ways, but could not make them palatable, and ]ironounced 

 them unlit for food. The next spring, while ploughing their garden, the 

 plough passed through whore the potatoes had grown, and turned out some of 

 great size, by which means they discovered their mistake. 



It is not the province of this paper to follow the development of 

 potato culture in the United States. For this the reader is referred 

 to the admirable monograph on the potato by William Stuart, of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, who treats of its culture, 

 uses, histor}^, and classification. 



SEARCH rOlt' THE WILD ANCESTOR 



Has the potato ever been found growing wild ? Several explorers 

 have encountered what was believed to be the wild form. Charles 

 Darwin, in January, 1835, found wild potatoes growing in the 

 Chonos Archipelago, southern Chile, not far from Avhere cultivated 

 potatoes were procured b}' Sir Francis Drake and Thomas Caven- 

 dish. These, however, as well as tuber-bearing Solanums collected 

 in Peru, JNIexico, and the southwestern United States have proved to 

 be quite distinct from Solanum tuherosum. Specialists who have 

 devoted themselves to the study of tuber-bearing Solanums unite in 

 their declaration that the true Solanum tuheroHum has never been 

 found growing wild. Dr. George Bitter, of Bremen, emphasizes 

 the fact that the problem of the origin of our cultivated potato is still 

 unsolved and that we know nothing of its original form before it 

 was cultivated by the Arauco Indians of Chile and the Incas of Peru. 

 Both he and Rydberg show" that the so-called Solanuui tuberosum 

 horedle of our Southwest is not a variety of the true potato ; and Mr. 

 W. F. Wight, after a long journe}" of exploration in South America 

 and careful research among specimens in herbariums of Europe and 

 America declares that "every reported occurrence of wild So7a7}uin 

 tuherosum that I have been able to trace to a specimen, either living 

 or preserved in the herbarium, has proved to be a different species. 

 In fact, so far as the herbarium material is concerned, I have not 

 found in any of the principal European collections a single specimen 

 of Solanum tuberosum collected in an undoubtedly wild state. After 

 a century and a half of intermittent collecting, there is no botanical 

 evidence that the species is now growing in its original indigenous 



