Februaiy 22, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



175 



tuber. Tobacco has become tlie greatest leaf-luxury of life, 

 and the Potato "the bread-root" of the British Isles. The 

 luau who iutrodnced their use into our native islands was Siit 

 Walteii Ealf-oii ; I spell his name as he spelt it himself. To 

 detail the events of his biography would not be suitable to your 

 columns, but I must note a tew relative facts and traditions. 

 When at Bictou last year I looked down from the Tower in 

 tlie lower plantation upon Hayes Barton and its suiToundiugs 

 — a combination of one of the most beautiful seacoast and 

 land views in South Devon. Hayes, in 1.552, was the birth- 

 place of Sir Walter Ealegh. It is near to a large wood of that 

 name, which adjoins the village of Yettington, and is about 

 half a mile from the western entrance to the Bicton demesne. 

 The house is now occupied by one of the tenantry on the EoUe 

 estate, and is distant somewhere about one mile from Budleigh 

 Salterton, in a south-westerly direction. There are several 

 antique chairs in the Swiss cottage in Bictou arboretum, which 

 are said formed part of the propertj' of Sir AY alter, and they as 

 weU as a bust of Sir Walter, are placed in a niche of the tenjple. 

 It is disputed whether Sir Walter introduced the Tobacco 

 plant into England, but Stowe sa>s that he fii t mile luiown 

 the smoking of "the weel James I when all men 

 wondered what it meant," 

 detested frantically " the 

 precious stink," as he 

 cdls it in his " Counter- 

 blast to Tobacco," and 

 so iuveterately pui'sued 

 measures to prevent its 

 use, that the tradition is 

 that Sir Walter, who was 

 a smoker, was obUged to 

 row to a rock in the river 

 Dart to use his pipe, and 

 the place is still knowni 

 as " Su- Walter Ralegh's 

 Rock." He was a snuft'- 

 taker also, and the box 

 from wliich he took a 

 pinch when about to kneel 

 down before the beads- 

 man was disposed of for 

 £C at the sale of the late 

 Duke of Sussex's personal 

 property. Su- Walter's 

 having introduced Tobac- 

 co would not aid those who 

 endeavoured to move the 

 king to save him from 



execution. So offensive was it to that most selfish and weakest 

 of nionarchs, and so general had the use of " the weed " become, 

 that the Cambridge University authorities wained scholars in 

 1614-15 not to go into a " Tobacco shop," nor " to take 

 Tobacco in St. Marie's Church, or in Trinity CoUedge Hall," 

 during the king's visit. One of Sir Walter's residences near 

 Loudon was the house now known as the Pied Bull Inn, at 

 Islington. There is an engraving of this house in the sixty- 

 first volume of the •• Gentleman's Magazine," and then, 1791, 

 in one of the rooms a coat of arms had upon it a Tobacco 

 plant between two sea horses. I now pass to the association 

 of Sir Walter with the Potato, and relative to this I have 

 nothing to add to the following notes published by me some 

 years since. 



The positive testimony of Gerard proves that the Potato 

 was forwarded to him from Yirginia ; and how they reached 

 that province of North America will be made to appear pro- 

 bable by the suggestions of Humboldt. Gerard, we may con- 

 clude, received the tubers from some of the settlers in Yirginia, 

 who emigrated thither about twelve years pre^^ously, in 1584, 

 under a patent granted by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Walter 

 Ralegh. And thus much is certain, that, in 1C0.3, Sir Robert 

 Southwell, President of the Royal Society, communicated to 

 that learned body the fact that his grandfather first cultivated 

 the Potato in Ireland, and that he obtained it from Ealegh. 

 Tradition states, further, that Sir Walter himself also had the 

 root planted on his estate near Youghall, i)i the South of 

 Ireland ; and that he gave them to his gardener as a desirable 

 fruit from America. When the berries were ripe in September, 

 the gardener brought them to his master, with the inquiry of 

 disappointment, "Sir, are these the tine American fruit?" 

 Sir 'Walter, either really or pretendingly ignorant of the Po- 

 tato's habit, desired them to be dug up as weeds, and thrown 



away ; but in doing this the tubers were revealed, and found to 

 be the available produce. 



Humboldt rationally concludes that the Yirginian colonists 

 obtained the Potato from the Spanish settlements, for it is 

 quite clear thatHt is not a native of Yii'ginia nor even of inter- 

 vening Jlexico, and that it was cultivated in Spain and Italy 

 before it was made known in England from Yir'ginia. 



Although the Potato was known to Enghsh botanists iu 

 1596, yet horticulture was too ignorantly practised in this 

 country to permit its rapid introduction among our cultivated 

 crops. In 1619 they were here a desued yet expensive luxury ; 

 for in that year of .Tames I.'s reign, a small dish of them pro- 

 vided for his queen's table cost l.s'. per lb., when money was at 

 least twice as valuable as it is now. 



Potato cultivation spread rapidly in Ireland ; and it became 

 established, it is said, in Lancashire, and that portion of our 

 northern coast still celebrated for its culture, owing to some 

 being on board a vessel wrecked upon its shore. Y^et the vahie 

 of the root was not generally known at a still later period, for 

 in a time of scarcity — namely, in the March of 1G63, it required 

 to be leconimende 1 as a crop ot national importa'nce in a letter 

 addiessed to the Eov al Society The writer of this letter was 

 Mr. Buckland, a Somer- 

 setslui-e gentleman ; and 

 the recommendation was 

 1 ef erred for consideration 

 to a committee by the So- 

 ciety. The report of that 

 c mmittee was favour- 

 able, and the Society not 

 only urged its cultivation 

 to landed proprietors , but 

 requested Mr. Evelyn to 

 enforce the Society's opi- 

 nion in his " Sylva," then 

 publishing under its aus- 

 pices, although it was no 

 favourite with him ; for 

 m 1664, in his " Kaleii- 

 daiium Hortense," he 

 sajs, " Plant Potatoes in 

 February in your worst 

 giound." Before the 

 Sylva " appeared — 

 namely, ill 1664, was 

 published a pamphlet, 

 the first devoted to the 

 subject of cultivating the 

 Potato, and bearing thi.s 

 piohx title — England b happiness mcicased, or a sure and easy 

 remedy against all succeeding dear years, by a plantation of 

 the roots called Potatoes, whereof (with the addition of Wheat 

 flour) excellent, good, and wholesome bread may be made, 

 every year, eight or nine months together, for half the charges 

 as formerly. Also, by the planting of these roots, ten thousand 

 men in England and Wales, who know not how to live or what 

 to do to get a maintenance for their families, may, of one acre 

 of ground, make £30 per annum. Invented and published, trr 

 the good of the poorer sorts, by John Forster, Gent., of Har- 

 .slop, in Buckiughamshu'e." 



Notwithstanding the widely-disseminated opinions of the 

 Royal Society, and there published appeals to the public, the 

 introduction of the Potato as an object of cultivation was 

 extremely slow. 



Worlidge, in 1687, although he remarked tliat the Potato 

 was then common in some parts of the continent, merely 

 suggests that they may be useful for swine or other cattle. 



Houghton, writing in 1699, says they were then very com- 

 mon in Lancashire, being introduced from Ireland, and that 

 they began to spread over England. The roots were boiled or 

 roasted, and eaten with butter and sugar ! — (Collect ions, n.,i68.) 

 Sharrock, Ray, Lisle, Bradley, Mortimer, etc., writing at the 

 close of the seventeenth, and early in the eighteenth century, 

 make most ehghting mention of the Potato ; and even Miller, in 

 the quarto edition of his dictionary, published as late as 1771, 

 only mentions the same two varieties, the red and the white- 

 tubered, which had been noticed by writers a century his 

 predecessors. 



Salmon, who wrote in 1711, speaks of theA'irginian, and the 

 English, or Irish Potato, as distinct kinds, though his descrip- 

 tion shows their identity — the only difference being, that the 

 colour of the skin of the tubers of the first was dirty white, and 



