HISTORY AND COOKERY 89 



Ireland about the year 1584, giving some to his own 

 gardener at Youghal, and others to the grandfather 

 of S. R. Southwell, who reported to the Fellows of 

 the Royal Society that his grandfather was the first 

 to grow potatoes in Ireland. The vegetable did not 

 immediately win great favour, and we find that Evelyn's 

 sole practical advice in the " Kalendarium Hortense" 

 on the planting of potatoes is given in one line of the 

 February directions : " And plant potatoes in your 

 worst ground ; " the only other reference to the vegetable 

 being in the section for November, where he writes : 

 " Take up your potatoes for winter spending ; there 

 will enough remain for stock, tho' never so exactly 

 gathered." In Worlidge's "Systema Agriculture," 

 of which the second edition the one of which I 

 possess a copy was published in 1675, he says of 

 potatoes : " These are very usual in foreign parts, 

 and are planted in several places of this country to 

 a very good advantage ; . . . they are commonly 

 eaten either buttered, or in milk. I do not hear that 

 it hath been as yet essayed, whether they may not be 

 propagated in great quantities for food for swine, or 

 other cattle." Even as late as 1719 we find Bradly 

 writing of potatoes that "they are of less note than 

 horse-radish, radish scorzoners, beets and skirret ; but 

 as they are not without their admirers, I will not pass 

 them by in silence." 



In the Literary Magazine for May 1757, appeared 

 a letter from a Staffordshire farmer, strongly urging 

 the more extended culture of potatoes. " At a time 

 when the nation is in such distress for want both of 

 corn and butcher's meat, it may not be amiss to point 

 out a method by which people may be kept, and 

 kept well, without any corn or meat at all. ... I 

 plant every year four acres of potatoes, which answer 

 all the purposes of wheat. For with them we make 



