130 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



that as a curious exotic. The potato was considered 

 as a great delicacy in the reign of James the First. 

 At that period, though it formed one of the articles 

 provided for the household of the Queen, the quantity 

 used was extremely small and exorbitantly dear, being 

 at the price of two shillings per pound.* This escu- 

 lent remained equally scarce throughout the turbu- 

 lent times of the succeeding reign, and during the 

 Commonwealth. Its cultivation very gradually 

 spread in different parts of Ireland, and also into 

 Lancashire, but not till nearly a hundred years 

 after the discovery of Virginia by Raleigh. Mr 

 Buckland, of Somersetshire, in the year 1663, drew 

 the attention of the Royal Society to its value, 

 earnestly recommending the general cultivation of 

 the potato throughout the kingdom to guard 

 against a famine. This appeal was not made in 

 vain. A committee was appointed to inquire into its 

 merits, and all those Fellows of the Society who 

 had lands adapted for the growth of the potato, 

 were entreated to plant them with that vegetable ; 

 while Mr Evelyn was requested to notice the sub- 

 ject at the close of his ' Sylva.' This celebrated 

 man appears, however, not to have been aware of the 

 importance of the potato as an article of food, for he 

 did not mention it until more than thirty years after 

 that period, and then in rather slighting terms. In 

 his ' Kalendarium Plantarum,' the first gardener's 

 calendar published in Britain, he thus writes: ' Plant 

 potatoes ia your worst ground. Take them up in 

 November for winter spending, there will enough 

 remain for a stock, though ever so exactly gathered.' 

 In another of his works, ' Acetarius,' he remarks 

 that the small green fruit or apples of the potato 

 make an excellent salad. This assertion has not, 

 however, been verified by experience. 



* Eden on the State of the Poor. 



