98 buist's family kitchen gardener. 



POTATO. 



Solarium tuberdsum. — Pomme de Terre^ Fr. — -Kartoffel^ Ger. 



This universal vegetable is a perennial, well known upon 

 every table. It is a native of South America. In the vicinity 

 of Quito, they are known under the name of Papas. They 

 appear to have been known in Virginia as early as 1584, and 

 were at that period cultivated by the Colonists. It is very 

 amusing to observe the remarks of early writers upon their 

 character, some saying they are only fit for " swine," while 

 others recommend them as a delicate dish. It is a species of 

 a very extensive family of plants, inhabitants of every part of 

 the globe, all of a forbidding aspect, and not a few of them of 

 the most deadly poison, while others are being extensively cul- 

 tivated both as food and luxury to man. Among them are the 

 Egg-plant and the Tomato. We are now arrived at a period 

 of the history of the Potato when there appears to be a universal 

 scourge or blight passed over the crop, in every country where 

 it is cultivated — universal in its effects and as universally un- 

 accounted for, some attributing it to one cause, while others 

 take an altogether opposite view. It has always and does still 

 appear to me to be an atmospheric disease, a kind of Cholera, 

 as I termed it two years ago, which has threatened the past 

 year nearly to extirpate the whole crop. We now predict that 

 it has come to its height, and another season will produce a 

 more healthy crop. Cultivation may promote health, though 

 it will not avert the calamity. New soil in the past year has 

 been more genial to the production of sound tubers, than old 

 cultivated fields, though the former has not been entirely ex- 

 empt from disease. The vines have always been affected after 

 a few dull, cloudy, moist, warm days ; these, succeeded by 

 strong sunshine, made visible the first blighting effects. To 

 cut off the stems close to the ground, as soon as the disease 

 appeared, has invariably benefited, and in many instances, en- 



