16 THE POTATO CROP. 



single source, which, failed them in their hour of need, 

 and brought disease and decimation into their families 

 and homes. The cultivation of the potato was checked 

 for a time, both in this country and in Ireland, by the sad 

 visitation of disease in 1843-5; substitutes, both in the 

 field as a crop, and on the table as a food, were intro- 

 duced; but as the cloud cleared off the land the potato 

 again resumed its place, and at the present day the " upas 

 tree" of Ireland, as Cobbett termed the plant, may be 

 seen occupying its old position, and well-nigh to the 

 same extent as in 'former years. 



The introduction of the potato into this country is of 

 comparatively recent date, and was attended by circum- 

 stances which have well preserved its early history. It is 

 without doubt a native of South America, having been 

 met with growing wild in Chili, Buenos Ayres, and along 

 the coast of the Pacific. Humboldt appears to have had 

 some scruples about its native habitat ; he admitted that 

 it is found in those countries, but raised the question as 

 to whether it was an indigenous or merely a naturalized 

 plant. Sir Joseph Banks 1 considered that it was brought 

 over to Europe from the mountainous districts in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Quito, by the Spaniards, in the early part of the 

 sixteenth century. Potatoes appear to have soon found 

 their way into Italy, as there is evidence that they were 

 known in that country about 1550. In 1588, Clusius, at 

 Vienna, received a present of some from the pope's legate in 

 the Low Countries, from which source they gradually found 

 their way all over Germany, where, however, during the 

 next century their cultivation was confined to the garden. 

 Their first appearance as a field crop, according to Timer, 

 was about 1771-72, when the progress of the country, first 

 recovering from the seven years' war, was again arrested 

 by the failure of the grain crops, and the potato, before 



1 Horticultural Transactions, vol. i. p. 8. 



