359 
which were favourite themes for the recitals of the early bards. 
Subsequently sheep appear to have been introduced; goats 
were likewise domesticated, and the remains of domestic fowl 
have been discovered in early tumuli—a circumstance which 
upon a former occasion I brought under the notice of the 
Academy. Corn, peas, beans, and possibly parsnips, with 
cabbages and onions, formed the vegetable food of the peo- 
ple, prior to the introduction of the potato. 
‘¢ Gerard, the English herbalist of 1597, is one of the first 
authors who alludes to the potato, and after him Richard 
Bradley, F.R.S., in his ‘ Planting and Gardening,’ published 
in 1634. Atameeting of the Royal Society, in March, 1662, 
a letter was read, containing a proposal for preventing famine, 
by dispersing potatoes throughout all parts of England ;—this 
subject is alluded to in Evelyn’s ‘Sylva.’ Threlkeld, the Irish 
botanist, described the plant in 1726, and says we had it 
through Thomas Herriott. The late Crofton Croker, in the 
introductory matter to his ‘Popular Songs of Ireland,’ has 
given some very interesting references to the early authorities 
respecting the introduction of the potato into Ireland, and Mr. 
MacAdan, of Belfast, has likewise written a valuable treatise 
on the subject in the ‘Quarterly Journal of Agriculture,’ 
for June, 1834-5. ‘That potatoes were ordinary food in 
the south of Ireland,’ writes Mr. Croker, ‘before the time 
of the Commonwealth, is shown by “ An Account of an 
Irish Quarter,” printed in 1654, in a volume entitled ‘‘ Songs 
and Poems of Love and Drollery,” by T. W. The writer 
and his friend visited Coolfin, in the county of Waterford, 
the seat of Mr. Poer, where at supper they were treated 
with codded onions, and in the van— 
‘Was a salted tail of salmon, 
And in the rear some rank potatoes came on.’ 
‘But although sown in gardens as a rarity, and used at 
supper as a delicacy, we have no authority for believing that 
