'With potatoes galore, and strong beer at one end, 

 In one corner yourself, the other your friend." 



POTATOES 



Native of Peru and South America. 



Potatoes were carried to England by Sir 

 Walter Raleigh from Virginia in 1586 but did 

 not come into general use for a hundred years 

 after. The Spaniards brought them into Eu- 

 rope about 1559 A. D. The tubers consist 

 mainly of a mass of cells filled with starch en- 

 closed in a thin, corky rind. They are three- 

 fourths water. It reaches its highest perfec- 

 tion in sandy soil. Salinas valley produces the 

 finest potatoes in California. They grow in 

 great abundance on the river bottoms of the 

 Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. 



One kind is known as the Salinas Burbank 

 and the other as the River Burbank. The 

 Burbank potato was an accidental cross, and 

 found in the seed ball of an Early Rose plant 

 in the year 1871 by Luther Burbank when he 

 lived in Massachusetts. He planted the seed 

 and obtained 26 varieties, of which the "Bur- 

 bank" proved the best. The other seedlings 

 were allowed to die or were destroyed. The 

 year 1873 was a boom year in potatoes in Eng- 



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