346 



DISCOVERY 



surrounded by one wall became of all things on earth 

 the most glorious.") 



DiDLiocRArmcAL NoTE.— Tlic rcsults of rcccnt research indi- 

 cate<l in this article have not yet found their way into the ordin- 

 ary textbooks on Roman history. The reader will find further 

 details in an interesting and easily accessible form in the 

 valuable articles on the peoples and languages of ancient 

 Italy by Professor R. S. Conway, in the last edition (the nth, 

 Cambridge. igio-ii)of the Encyclopadia Drilannica. A start 

 should be made with the articles (i) Italy, History, A : Ancient 

 Langua/;es and Peoples (vol. xv, p. 25) ; (ii) Sabini (vol. xxiii) ; 

 and (iii) Rome, Ancient History, I : The Beginnings of Rome and 

 the Monarchy (vol. xxiii, p. 615) ; references are given there 

 to some other articles by the same writer in the Encyclopedia, 

 and also to other works, of which the most useful and compact 

 (although somewhat controversial) is Professor Sir William 

 Ridgeway's paper. Who vere the Romans ? (1907) published in 

 the Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. iii (1907-8), and 

 also separately by the Oxford University Press. (The present 

 article is based on the published works and teaching of these 

 two distinguished .scholars, and the writer takes this oppor- 

 tunity of acknowledging his deep obligations to them, especially 

 to Professor Conway, who read the whole of this article in 

 manuscript. In its final form it owes not a little to his numer- 

 ous suggestions.) A German writer. Binder, has since followed 

 in support of the same view in his book Die Plebs (1909). The 

 problems of early Italic ethnology were discussed in relation 

 to the primitive peoples of the Mediterranean lands and their 

 civilisation in Professor Ridgeway's Early Age of Greece, vol. i 

 (igoi, Cambridge University Press). There is a succinct and 

 popular account of the Indo-European peoples, with special 

 reference to Greece and Italy, in the second of two Lectures on 

 the Science of Language, by the late Professor J. H. Moulton 

 (1903. Cambridge University Press). For a full statement of 

 the early arch.Tological evidence revealed by excavation see 

 Professor T. E. Peet's Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy and Sicily 

 (1909, Clarendon Press). 



The Potato 



By George C. Gough, A.R.C.Sc, B.Sc. 



If there was one thing more than another that the war 

 taught the Englishman, it was the value of the potato 

 as food. Like many another common thing, it took a 

 great war to make him appreciate its worth, and the 

 scarcity of the tuber in the winter of I9i(>-i7 brought 

 home, both to rich and poor, more especially the latter, 

 the fact that it was an essential article of his diet. 



Although not a perfect food, the value of the potato 

 for feeding purposes has now been recognised by the 

 nation, and when the submarine campaign was at its 

 height, great efforts were made to increase the acreage 

 devoted to this crop, as it has the advantage of yielding 

 more food per acre than any other crop, excepting, 

 perhaps, the sugar-beet, which largely loses its advan- 



tage by having to go through a manufacturing process 

 before being fit for human consumption. 



The early history of the potato and its arrival in 

 England is given in most encyclop.edias, but the tale 

 of Sir Walter Raleigh's gardener, to whom he gave it 

 as a fine fruit from America, is not so well known. 

 The gardener was desired to plant it in the spring ; in 

 August the plants flowered, and in September produced 

 fruit which, in rather an ill humour, he carried to his 

 master. " Is this the fine fruit from America you 

 prized so highly ? " he asked, as he showed the potato 

 apple. Sir Walter pretended to be ignorant of the 

 matter, and said that, " Since that is the case, dig up 

 the weed and throw it away." The gardener, however, 

 soon brought back a parcel of potatoes. 



It is very probable that the early jwtatoes gave p)Oor 

 crops, but many flowers and fruits, or p>otato apples 

 as they are called. Since that time, owing to selection 

 and cross-fertilisation, the crops have increased very 

 greatly, and although a few varieties which flower and 

 fruit freely give good crops, as a whole potatoes flower 

 but little nowadays. 



From a theoretical point of view this is an advantage, 

 as a plant cannot produce a good crop of tubers as well 

 as seed. The ordinary' seed potato is not true seed, 

 being merely a tuber of a suitable size riddled out of the 

 crop. The tuber is not a root, as so many people think, 

 but it is a modified imderground stem and bears leaves ; 

 albeit these are very small and scale-like, so that their 

 general appearance is seen as an eyebrow above the 

 " eye " of the potato, which in its turn is a bud. 



The tuber is but a store which contains the surplus 

 food material manufactured by the leaves, and anything 

 that will enable the leaves to remain green longer than 

 they otherwise would do enables the plant to manufactiu^ 

 more food, and thcrfore to give a better crop of tubers. 

 This food is manufactured by the leaves during the 

 day-time in the form of sugar, which is almost immedi- 

 ately converted into starch, but during the night, by 

 means of secretion called a ferment or enzyme, it is 

 reconverted into sugar, taken down the stem to the 

 tuber, and there stored again as starch, as only soluble 

 materials can be transferred through the plant. 



When the tuber commences to grow, this starch is 

 again converted into sugar, and used by the yoimg 

 plant until it has produced sufficient roots and leaves to 

 start life on its own. 



The hard seed tubers one frequently finds, when a 

 potato plant is dug up, seem to be due to the fact that 

 sufficient enzyme was not present in order to convert 

 the starch into sugar. 



The presence of this hard tuber is often associated 

 with the presence of a disease called leaf-roll, of which 

 little is known, but which causes a great reduction of 

 crop. Such tubers germinate but slowly, and produce 



