516 



THE POTATO 



tatoes : * It appears probable that the potatoe was 

 first brought into Europe from the mountain- 

 ous parts of South America in the neighbor- 

 hood of Quito, where they were called papas, 

 to Spain, early in the sixteenth century. From 

 Spain, where they were called vattatas, they found 

 their way to Italy, and there received the same 

 name as the truffle, taratoufli. From Italy they 

 went to Vienna, through the Governor of Mons in 

 Hainbault, who sent some to Clusius in 1598. To 

 England the potatoe found its way from North 

 America, being brought from Virginia by the 

 colonists sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, 

 and who returned in July, 1586, and " probably," 

 says Sir Joseph Banks "brought with them the 

 potatoe." Gerarde in his "Herbal," published in 

 1597, gives a figure of the potatoe under the name of 

 potatoe of Virginia, whence, he says, he received 

 the roots; and this appellation it appears to have 

 retained, in order to distinguish it from the bat- 

 tatas, or sweet potatoe {Convolvulus hattatas) 

 till the year 1640, if not longer. Gough says the 

 potatoe was first planted by Sir Walter Raleigh 

 on his estate of Youghall, near Cork, and that they 

 were soon after carried into Lancashire. Gerarde 

 and Parkinson, however, mention them as deli- 

 cacies for the confectioner and not as common 

 food. Even so late as Bradley's time (1716, in 

 his '*Historia Plantarum Succulentarum") they 

 are spoken of as inferior to skirrets and radishes. 

 " 'The use of potatoes, however, became more 

 and more know^n after the middle of the eighteenth 

 century and has greatly increased in all parts of 

 Britain within the last thirty years. It is also 

 very general in Plolland and many parts of France 

 and Germany and is increasing rapidly in Russia. 



