360 
the potato had become the general or principal food of the 
Irish peasantry until the middle of the century. That, how- 
ever, the cultivation of the plant was making rapid progress, 
may be learned by reference to Cole’s ‘Adam in Eden, or 
the Paradise of Plants,’—published in London in 1657, which 
says :—‘ The potatoes which we call Spanish [not the sweet 
potato], because they were first brought up to us out of Spain, 
grew originally in the Indies, where they, or at least some of 
this kind, serve for bread, and have been planted in many of 
our gardens [in England], where they decay rather than in- 
crease; but the soyle of Ireland doth so well agree with them, 
that they grow there so plentifully that there be whole fieldes 
overrun with them, as I have been informed by divers soul- 
diers which came from thence.* ‘The soldiers alluded to by 
Cole were those of the Parliamentary forces engaged in Ire- 
land from 1649 to 1653, during a period when Sir William 
Petty calculated that 616,000 of the Irish and the English 
in Ireland died by the sword, famine, and pestilence. 
‘¢ Ina paper published in the ‘ Philosophical Transactions’ 
in 1672, and believed to have been written by Dr. Beale, 
- concerning a strange frost which occurred in England in that 
year, we read that—in 1629 or 1630 there was a dearth in 
England; and ‘much talk there was then that in London 
that the had a way to knead and ferment boyled turnips, with 
a small quantity of meal;’ and then he goes on to say, ‘potadoes 
were a relief to Ireland in their last famine; they yield meat 
and drink.’ This famine was evidently that alluded to by 
Petty in the foregoing reference. 
«¢ From the researches which I have made it would appear 
that the cultivation of the potato was very irregular through- 
out the country ; some localities, especially in Ulster, having 
only adopted it generally within the memory of the past 
generation. M‘Skimmin, in his ‘ History of Carrickfergus,’ 
* T am indebted to our Treasurer, R. Ball, Esq., for Cole’s rare book. 
