

ORIGIN AND INTRODUCTION. 



The potato was at first esteemed a great luxury in England, and 

 Queen Anne ordered them served on her table at 2s. the pound. In 

 1663 it was recommended by the Royal Society for the prevention of 

 famine. Indeed, no vegetable production has ever made so much pro- 

 gress in cultivation and consumption as this has within the last 60 

 years, notwithstanding the great opposition to it. Though not culti- 

 vated in Scotland, except in gardens, till 1728, yet the quantity raised 

 there 10 years ago was 12 times that in 1784. In this country the 

 cultivation of the potato has increased with our population, so that 

 the product of the U. S. last year was 136,883,383 bushels. 



It was called, in the records of the voyages to this country, openawk. 

 The Irish gardner of Sir W. R., on finding one potato of the maturity 

 of" apples," as the result of planting, earnestly enquired of Sir W. if 

 that were the fine fruit of Amiriki. Pretending to be disappointed 

 himself, Sir W. ordered his gardner to root out the seed entirely, in 

 doing which, instead of one, he found a bushel of potatoes ! 



The potato was found wild in various parts of America, by the first 

 discoverers, and it still is so found. It grows abundantly in a wild state, 

 near Valparaiso, and along the coast for many miles, where its flowers 

 are always a pure white, instead of being colored like the cultivated 

 plant. It has been transported to foreign botanical gardens, where 

 the tubers vary but very little from the common cultivated plant. The 

 attempts, therefore, to make it appear doubtful as to its origin, or as 

 not indigenous to this country, render the fact of its being so the more 

 apparent, and the quibblers the more silly and s-elfish. 



It was brought into use in G. Britain against the strongest and most 

 ridiculous prejudices and misrepresentations of the aristocracy and 

 professional men. Many writers on plants did not even mention it for 

 more than 100 years after its introduction, and not until its merits and 

 cultivation had forced it upon public attention. It had long been ex- 

 tensively cultivated in Ireland, and was well known in Scotland, be- 

 fore it was much used in England. 



Religious prejudices were waged against it, it having been main- 

 tained that potatoes are not mentioned in the Bible !" Therefore 

 the same anathema was pronounced against it as was pronounced 

 against spinning wheels" and corn farmers." On no subject do 

 men appear so irrational as when arraying their religious prejudices 

 against science and the gifts of nature. 



More recently the priests of the Ionian Islands pronounced the potato 

 the forbidden fruit," and the cause of the fall of man ;" hence its 

 use must be sacrilegious and wicked. Nor were the French without 

 their prejudices against its use, they having rejected a gentleman for cul- 

 tivating it, and alleged that he invented it. Popular favor subsequently 

 set in so strongly in its favor that Louis XIV. and his court wore the 

 flower in the button-holes of their coats. During the dearth of the 



