20 The Potato 



America, so that Henry Phillips (1822), who published a 

 detailed account of the potato and its culture, was able 

 to cite a single grower who planted 300 acres annually. 



In Ireland, they were used very extensively as human 

 food. By 1840 they had largely replaced the cereals and 

 similar food crops because their yield in weight exceeded 

 by twenty to thirty times the yield of wheat, barley or 

 oats on an equal amount of land. Dependence upon a 

 single crop for food, however, became disastrous for the 

 Irish. The potato blight which appeared in the United 

 States in 1845 devastated Ireland in 1846 and caused 

 a widespread famine. It is conservatively estimated 

 that 600,000 persons died during the two years 1846 and 

 1847 for want of food or from diseases caused by a meager 

 diet of unhealthy and unnutritious food. By 1848 the 

 plague had practically ceased. 



REFERENCES 



Campbell, W. H. W. The Father of the Potato. Cosmopolitan, 



Vol. II, pp. 191-192. 1SS6. 

 De Candolle, Alphonse. Origin of Cultivated Plants. 1-468, 



N. Y., 1892. 

 Del'Ecluse (ofClusius). RariorumPlantarumHistoriae, 1601, lib. 

 Gerard. Herbal. 1597, p. 781, with illustration. 

 Meckel, E. The Origin of the Cultivated Varieties of the Potato. 



Rev. Sci. (Paris), 60: 1912, II, No. 21, pp. 641-646. 

 Henslow, Geo. The Origin and History of Our Garden Vegetables 



and Their Dietetic Values. II. Roots + tubers (cont.). 



Roy. Hort. Soc. Journ., 36: pp. 345-346, Figs. 120- 



121 (1910-1911). 

 Rose, Ernest. Histoire de la pomme de terre traitee aux points de 



vue historique, cultural ct utilitaire. 1-464 Par. 1898. 

 Sabine, J. On the Native Country of the Wild Potatoes. Trans. 



Hort. Soc. London, Vol. V, pp. 249-259. 1824. 



