CHEMISTRY AND USES OF THE POTATOE. 27 



potatoes, but I should think that the drinkers could be no 

 great epicures. The action of frost, no doubt, generates 

 sugar in the decaying tuber. 



(07.) Potatoes, especially the coarser kinds, are em- 

 ployed for feeding cattle. Milch cows, however, when 

 thus fed, are supposed to give large quantities of milk, but 

 of an inferior quality. 



(98.) They are also employed raw for feeding sheep ; 

 for swine, however, they are more generally steamed or 

 boiled. In some places poultry are fed with them, and 

 very commonly with the addition of butter-milk. 



(99.) A very curious use of the potatoe plant is given 

 by John Evelyn, which now doubtless has become obso- 

 lete. " The small green fruit, when about the size of the 

 wild cherry, being pickled, is an agreeable sallet." 



(100.) The Mexicans, like the Peruvians, can preserve 

 potatoes for whole years by exposing them to the frost 

 and drying them in the sun. The root, when hardened 

 and deprived of water, is called chama. 



(101.) Such are the various purposes for which the 

 potatoe is employed, and so valuable to man are its uses, 

 that the plant has had an extraordinarily extensive range 

 of cultivation. Humboldt states that it is found from the 

 southern extremity of Africa to Labrador, Iceland, and 

 Lapland. 



