and on its Introduction into Europe. 157 
Hispaniola, he says: “ Theyr meate is a certeyne roote which 
they call ages, much lyke a navew roote in fourme and greatnesse, 
but of sweete taste, much lyke a green chesnutie. They use ages 
more often rosted or sodden, then to make breade thereof.”’— 
Eden’s Translation of the Decades of P. Martyr, book i. p. 3. 
In the personal narrative of the first voyage of Columbus we 
are informed that the principal subsistence of the natives of His- 
paniola or Haiti was bread made of the sweet potato, called aes, 
niames or names. Columbus saw some of the roots of the thick- 
ness of a man’s leg. On the homeward voyage of the successful 
navigator, he carried with him a quantity of these roots as a sub- 
stitute for bread. This is strong presumptive evidence of the 
first introduction of the sweet potato into Hurope. 
Several varieties of the sweet potato were cultivated by the 
natives of Hispaniola and Cuba and elsewhere, all of which are 
mentioned in the ninth book of Martyr’s third Decade. It is 
proper to note, however, that the first adventurers nowhere speak 
of finding this root in a wild state, but always cultivated in the 
gardens of the Indians. 
That the common potato is indicated among the vegetable 
productions of the coast of Honduras, we would infer from the 
tenor of the passage: ‘There regyons beare also gossampyne 
trees here and there commonly in the wooddes. Lykewise miro- 
balanes of sundry kyndes, as those which the physitians caule 
emblicos and chebulos. Maizium also, jucca, ages and battatas, 
lyke unto those whiche we have sayde before to bee founde in 
other regions in these coastes.”—Martyr’s third Decade, book iv. 
p- 105. | 
And again, of the productions of Terra Firma: “Theyr com- 
mon meate is ages, jucca, maxium, battata. * * * There are 
lykewise dyvers kyndes of the rootes of ages and battata. But 
they use these rather as fruites and dysshes of service, then to 
make breade thereof, as we use rapes, radysshes, musheroms, 
navies, perseneppes, and such lyke. In this case, they mooste 
especially esteeme the best kynde of battata, which in pleasant 
taste and tenderness farre excedeth owre musheromes.”— Third 
Decade, b. v. pp. 114, 115. 
From the want of precision in the passages just quoted, we are 
led to infer that the two very distinct plants, the Solanum tube- 
rosum and the Convolvulus batatas, are confounded in the verna- 
cular names ages and battatas. Certain it is that the root termed 
ages, in the first Decade, is the Co/volvulus, as the comparison of 
it, as respects form and size, with the nevew, a species of cabbage, 
the Brassica napus of Linnzeus, and its resemblance, in regard 
to taste, to raw chestnuts, must make manifest. No such de- 
scription will apply to the common potato. 
