No. 216.] 721 



Priest, in his General History of the Indies, published in 1553, also 

 mentions the Papas, a name generally used then to designate the po- 

 tato. Cardan who collected all the notions extant in his day, rela- 

 tive to the New World, was in 1557 acquainted with these Papal, 

 which he says afford a substantial nourishment called Eijuno, a sort 

 of Truffle which grows in a region of Peru called Callao; that per- 

 sons who trade in this root in Potosi, get rich by it Cardan says it 

 resembles the Argemone, a kind of poppy, to which Cieca, an ig- 

 norant soldier, had badly compared it." Joseph Acosta says that the 

 Peruvians employed it in lieu of bread roots dried in the sun, which 

 ■they called Chuniw, or they eat them fresh or they broil them. 



The following fact has singularly contributed to create a belief 

 that the introduction of the potato was du€ to the English, and that 

 it came from their ancient possessions in America. We find indeed, 

 in almost all the works on rural economy and botany, published at 

 the commencement of this century, that the potato was brought from 

 Virginia to England, about the end of the 16th century, by Admiral 

 ■Sir W^alter Raleigh, who presented it to Queen Elizabeth; and that 

 from Ireland, where it was first attempted to be cultivated, it was car- 

 ried to Lancashire, and afterwards extended through the rest of Europe. 

 It is true that Sir Walter Raleigh had visited Virginia in 1584, but 

 according to all the historians cited by Miller in his Gardener's Dic- 

 tionary, potatoes were not introduced until 1623, or according to 

 Parkinson, until 1629. Every thing seems then to prove that North 

 America first furnished this precious tuber^ but it is demonstrated 

 that if the English had brought it among them, it had before that 

 •time been very extensively diffused through the South of Europe- 

 Being introduced into Spain after the conquest of Peru, it was almost 

 immediately transferred to Italy. And it is natural th^t the Spanish 

 soldiers who returned from America should be employed in the ar- 

 jTiies of Italy at that period, and that they should carry the potato 

 with them. 



The Botanist, Charles L'Ecluses, (Clusius) of Arras, who publish- 

 ed in 1631, a very exact description of this root, and who called the 

 .attention of cultivators to it, as being destined one day to afford a 

 grand resource for mankind, says that it has already become so com- 

 mon in some countries of Italy, that it was eaten habitually with mut- 

 ton, and that hogs were fattened with it. He says the greater part 

 of tbe Italians do not know where it came from, but it is certain that 

 it came by the Spaniards from America. He doubts whether it was 

 known by the ancients; thinks it may have been the Arachidna of 



[Am. Ixst.] W 



