Si GO On the Wild Potato. 



of it, from my further search respecting the plant in the south- 

 ern provinces, where Mr. Cruickshanks did not accompany me, 

 as I found it quite as abundant there as in the northern parts. 

 Humboldt is of opinion that the potato grows wild in Peru, 

 from which opinion I am obliged to differ, at least so far as to 

 state that, during my journey in the Andes, 1 found no tuber- 

 bearing solanums on their declivities between 5° and 12° of 

 south latitude. The potato in its wild state, however, is not an 

 inhabitant of the mountains : but, in the northern part of Chile, 

 where both Mr. Cruickshanks and myself made a journey along 

 the coast, and carefully examined it, and also in the southern 

 part, where I travelled alone, we found an immense quantity 

 of wild potatoes at a height never exceeding that of 400 ft. 

 above the level of the sea ; more generally, however, in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of the sea, and in the greatest luxu- 

 riance in rich loamy declivities, or in the chinks of the rocks 

 exposed to the sea breezes, and only elevated a few fathoms 

 above the level of the ocean. We never stiw the wild potato 

 farther from the sea than one or two leagues. It is easily dis- 

 tinguished from the cultivated potato, when it is once known 

 that its blossoms are always white. 



The potato, by right, ought to bear the name of a sea-shore 

 plant, and its native country is undoubtedly Chile. It has been 

 said that this plant is found cultivated on the hills that border 

 the coast, and on the steep rocky declivities at Punta de Quin- 

 tero, &c., but the soil there is either incapable of cultivation, 

 or the land so steep that nobody could make any use of it. 

 The wild potato is often known in Chile by the name of Papa 

 cimarono, because in its natural state its very small tubers are 

 found to be bitter. They are often found growing in a wild state 

 on steep places; and in 1827, when the fort at Valparaiso was 

 pulled down, and part of a steep rock gave way, and also in 

 1828 at the Cerro alegre, such an extraordinary quantity of 

 those uneatable tubers rolled down into the streets, that many 

 strangers who had never seen the wild potato could hardly be- 

 lieve the assertion. It cannot be affirmed that the wild potato 

 is found in good soil, or in the drift hills of sand at Quintero ; 

 it, on the contrary, prefers the steep declivities and the small 

 step-kind of formation on high projecting rocks. That the wild 

 potato is very sensitive of a change of atmosphere, is evident 

 from the circumstance, that it is found in abundance at the foot 

 of Monte Manco, not far from Cocon in Chile ; but not at all 

 on its summit, a height of 500 ft., where, on the contrary, fields 

 of the cultivated potato flourish well. The potato is not used 

 to the same extent in Chile as it is in Peru, where the inhabi- 

 tants of the Andes, without the least exaggeration, derive more 

 than the half of their nourishment from its tubers. The Indians 



