CHAPTER XX 

 THE POTATO 



BY J. H, GOURLEY 

 New Hampshire Agricultural College 



THE " Irish " potato is one of the few valuable crops 

 used for human food of which America can claim to be 

 the original home. In the valleys of the mountains of 

 Chili, South America, the potato was found growing wild 

 by the earliest travelers to the new world. They found 

 the natives cultivating it so generally that it seemed to 

 be an old crop. These early travelers carried some of 

 the tubers back to Spain and from there the potato was 

 taken to Italy. Here it was grown rather commonly 

 and found its way northward into the Netherlands. It 

 was probably first grown in North America in what is 

 now Virginia and North Carolina during the latter part 

 of the sixteenth century. Between 1580 and 1590 the 

 potato was introduced into Great Britain from Virginia 

 by Sir Thomas Herriot, a companion of Sir Walter Raleigh. 

 Potatoes were first planted in Ireland near Cork. In the 

 year 1846 there was a failure of the potato crop in Ireland 

 which caused great suffering, and many people left the 

 country and came to America, to such an extent were they 

 depending upon it for food. 



378. Production. At present the United States is 

 far behind the countries of Europe in the production per 

 acre. The United States has an average yield per acre 



358 



