262 [ Assembly 



What wonderful changes have been wrought in the vegetable 

 kingdom by the arts of garden] iig and agriculture ! How many 

 herbs that were once considered worthless, are now cultivated among 

 the most valued, as well as the most common of our table vegetables. 

 Several of those now grown in the fields, were, at no very distant 

 period, little known, or considered as garden delicacies, and ex- 

 clusively confined to the tables of the rich ; and it has been con- 

 jectured that not one of the nui: erous kinds and varieties of fruit, 

 now found in our gardens and orchards, are what they were in their 

 aboriginal state, but are the offspring of accident or skill. 



According to Sir Joseph Banks, the potato, one of the most im- 

 portant culinary vegetables of the present day, " was first introduc- 

 ed into England from America, by the colonists sent out by Sir 

 Walter Raleigh, in 1586.* It was first cultivated in Ireland by the 

 grandfather of Sir Robert Southwell, from tubers given him by Sir 

 Walter Raleigh." At this early period it was looked upon as so 

 great a rarity, that it was only planted in small quantities. In the 

 year 1619, the common market-price of the potato was one shilling 

 English per lb. For a long time it was treated as a fruit, baked in 

 pie with spices and wine, or eaten with sugar ; and nearly two hun- 

 dred years elapsed from its first introduction before it was cultivated 

 as a field crop f 



Since that time what rapid advances have been made in Agricul- 

 ture by the aid of our State Fairs, the Americun Institute, and our 

 County Societies! It has been truly said, that the " great business 

 of America, at the present day, is Agriculture, for already has na- 

 ture written upon her — ' The Granary of the world.'' Two hun- 

 dred millions of human beings can draw their sustenance from the 



•In De Bry'8 collection of Voyages, he describes a plant called Openawk, which 

 is, in all probability, identical with the potato. Gerarde, in his Herbal, published 

 in 1597, figures the potato under the name of the potato of Virginia ; hence, he 

 says, he received the roots. 



f "The chemical physiologist will tell you that the well ripened potato, when 

 properly cooked, contains every element that man requires for nutrition, and in the 

 best proportions in which they are found in any plant whatever. There is the 

 abounding supply of starch for enabling him to maintain the process of breathing, 

 and for generating the necessary warmth of body ; there is the nitrogen for con- 

 tributing to the growth and renovation of organs ; the lime and the phosphorus for 

 the bones, and all the salts which a healthy circulation demands. In fine, the po- 

 tato may well be called the universal plant ; and the disease under which it now 

 labors is a universal calamity." — Professor C. U. Shtpard^s Address, delivered before 

 the Agricultural Societies of Hampden and Hampshire Countiu. 



