PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SUBTERRANEAN PARTS. 47 



The species could scarcely have been introduced into 

 Virginia or Carolina in Raleigh's time (1585), unless the 

 ancient Mexicans had possessed it, and its cultivation 

 had been diffused among the aborigines to the north of 

 Mexico. Dr. Roulin, who has carefully studied the works 

 on North America, has assured me that he has found 

 no signs of the potato in the United States before the 

 arrival of the Europeans. Dr. Asa Gray also told me so, 

 adding that Mr. Harris, one of the men most intimately 

 acquainted with the language and customs of North 

 American tribes, was of the same opinion. I have read 

 nothing to the contrary in recent publications, and we 

 must not forget that a plant so easy of cultivation 

 would have spread itself even among nomadic tribes, had 

 they possessed it. It seems to me most likely that some 

 inhabitants of Virginia — perhaps English colonists — 

 received tubers from Spanish or other travellers, traders 

 or adventurers, during the ninety years which had elapsed 

 since the discovery of America. Evidently, dating from 

 the conquest of Peru and Chili, in 1535 to 1585, many 

 vessels could have carried tubers of the potato as pro- 

 visions, and Sir Walter Raleigh, making war on the 

 Spaniards as a privateer, may have pillaged some vessel 

 which contained them. This is the less improbable, since 

 the Spaniards had introduced the plant into Europe 

 before 1585. 



Sir Joseph Banks ^ and Dunal ^ were right to insist 

 upon the fact that the potato was first introduced by the 

 Spaniard, since for a long time the credit was generally 

 given to Sir Walter Raleigh, who was the second intro- 

 ducer, and even to other Englishmen, who had introduced, 

 not the potato but the batata (sweet potato), which is 

 more or less confounded with it.^ A celebrated botanist, 

 de I'Ecluse,* had nevertheless defined the facts in a 



1 Banks, Trans. Hort. Soc, 1805, vol. i. p. 8. 



2 Dunal, Hist. Nat. des Solamun, in 4to. 



2 The plant imported by Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake 

 was clearly the sweet potato, Sir J. Banks says ; whence it results that 

 the questions discussed by Humboldt touching the localities visited by 

 -these travellers do not apply to the potato. 



* De I'Ecluse, Rariarum Plantarum, Historia, 1601, lib. 4, p. Ixxviii. 



