2 The Sweet Potato 



sweet potato is a true enlarged root while the Irish potato 

 is a tuber of underground branches or rhizomes.^ 



Although cultivated perhaps more widely in the New 

 World than in the Old, the sweet potato now plays a part 

 in the vegetable calendar of gardeners in every country 

 within or near the tropics and of recent years has 

 become of considerable commercial importance in several 

 regions of both North and South America. 



The definite origin of the sweet potato has been much 

 investigated and discussed for many years and there is 

 much diversity of opinion on the subject. Although 

 there are arguments for both its American and Oriental 

 origin as well as the possibility of its being indigenous 

 to both the eastern and western hemispheres, much must ' 

 1)6 learned before the question can be definitely and con- 

 clusively decided. The available evidence in favor of 

 American origin at the present time seems to be pre- 

 ponderant, and this theory is the one most popular 

 among American agriculturists. 



The tuber is now widely distributed in all tropical 

 regions and is being considerably used in the eastern 

 countries, and by some writers who contend that it 

 belongs to both hemispheres is " thought to have been 

 much used by the ancient Chinese," although the food 

 article referred to may have been the Chinese yam. 



De CandoUe says that Clusius (about 1600) was one 

 of the first writers to mention the sweet potato and he 

 quotes the latter as saying he had eaten the product in 

 the south of Spain, where it was supposed to come from 

 the New World.^ Historians tell us that Columbus 



1 De Candolle gives Turpin in " Mem. du Museum,'' Vol. XIX, 

 Plates 1, 2, 5, credit for having clearly shown these facts. 



2 De Candolle, " Origin of Cultivated Plants," 54. 



