HISTORY OF THE POTATO 31 



which I know of by any English writer is in Gerard, 

 who mentions, in his herbal, receiving some roots from 

 Virginia, and planting them in his garden near London 

 as a curiosity, in the year 1597. All the multiform 

 tales which we have of its introduction by Hawkins, 

 shipwrecked vessels, Raleigh, and his boiling the apples 

 instead of the roots, are merely traditional fancies, or 

 modern inventions, with little or no probability for sup- 

 port. There is some possibility that Sir Walter Raleigh 

 might have introduced the potato into Ireland from 

 America, when he returned in 1584, or rather after his 

 last voyage, eleven years later; but if so, it was much 

 confined in its culture, and slowly acquired estimation, 

 even in that island ; for Dr. Campbell does not admit 

 that it was known there before the year 1610, fifteen 

 years after Sir Walter's final return. In England it 

 seems to have been yet more tardy in obtaining notice; 

 for the first mention which I can find, wherein this 

 tuber is regarded as possessing any virtue, is by that 

 great man Sir Francis Bacon, who investigated nature 

 from the " cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hys- 

 sop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of 

 beasts, and of fowls, and of fishes, and of creeping 

 things," in his history of "Life and Death," written, 

 probably, in retirement after his disgrace. He observes, 

 that " if ale was brewed with one-fourth part of some 

 fat root, such as the potado, to three-fourths of grain, it 

 would be more conducive to longevity than with grain 

 alone." It was thus full twenty -four years after its be- 

 ing planted by Gerard, that the nutritive virtues of this 

 root appear to have been understood : but with us there 

 seems to have been almost an antipathy against this 

 root as an article of food, which can scarcely excite 

 surprise, when we consider what a wretched sort must 

 have been grown, which one writer tells us was very 

 near the nature of Jerusalem artichokes, but not so good 

 or wholesome ; and that they were to be roasted and 

 sliced, and eaten with a sauce composed of wine and 

 sugar ! Even Philip Miller, who wrote his account not 

 quite seventy years ago, says " they were despised by 

 the rich, and deemed only proper food for the meaner 



