60 THE RISK OF RHUBARB 



had any experience of them as food. He replied ' No ; 

 and so long as I can get a decent potato, I don't intend 

 to try Alstromeria ! ' It is well that Sir Walter Raleigh 

 showed more enterprise or curiosity than my friend, for 

 he it was who, on his estate near Cork, raised the first 

 crop of potatoes grown in the British Isles, from tubers 

 brought home by his colonists in 1586. 



Mention of the potato, belonging as it does to the 

 Natural order Solanace, which contains such harmful 

 herbs as deadly nightshade, henbane and tobacco, 

 brings to mind that insoluble problem How did the 

 human race ascertain what fruits and roots could be 

 eaten with impunity or advantage ? Who first found 

 out that the fruit of the tomato Solanum lycoper- 

 sicum was wholesome and refreshing, while that of 

 potato tuberosum provided the means for painful 

 suicide? Knowledge must have come as the result 

 of many an anxious experiment, whereof probably 

 prisoners of war, slaves and poor relations were made 

 the subject. 



Rhubarb, about which I set out to prose, has not been 

 used very long in this country as an early, cheap, and 

 (as I think) a nasty substitute for fruit. Although the 

 root of the plant, as the source of an approved drug, 

 has been imported in large quantities from very early 

 times, the plant itself was not grown in England 

 till about 1620. Nine years later John Parkinson pub- 

 lished his Paradisi in sole Paradisus Terrestris ; or a 

 Garden of all sorts of pleasant Flowers which our 

 English ayre will permit to be nursed up (it is affection, 

 not pedantry, that tempts me to give the full title). In 



