SOLANACEiE 



45 1 



at Port Pegasus (in Stewart Island), Tautuku Bay in S.E. Otago, 

 Waikouaiti and elsewhere on the east coast, supplied large quantities 

 of potatoes. 



Darwin who travelled from the Bay of Islands to Waimate in 

 183s says: 



After travelling some miles we came to a little country village, where a few 

 hovels were collected, and some patches of ground cultivated with potatoes. 

 The introduction of the potato has been the most essential benefit to the 

 island ; it is now much more used than any native vegetable. 



Bidvnll travelling in 1839 between Tauranga and Tongariro says: 



the potato might be taken for an indigenous plant, as it is impossible to 

 go anywhere without finding it growing wild. Maoris only grow potatoes 

 in land which is just cleared, and after about three crops abandon it, and 

 clear another portion of forest. 



This mode of cultivation was also noticed by Dieffenbach in the same 

 year in the island of Ararapa. He remarks: "Half-burned stems of 

 trees were lying in confusion over each other, and in the places 

 between were patches of potatoes." He says in one place in his account 

 of this trip : 



as we passed through the woods we found two plantations of potatoes. 

 As my natives never seemed to consider that these kind of plantations 

 belonged to anybody, we always used to help ourselves when we came to 

 any of them, without compunction. In fact I suppose that these patches 

 must have been planted by some of the mission-natives, on purpose to 

 save trouble when they went their journeys between the two stations. 



Wilkes, who visited the Auckland Islands in 1840, says: "Some 

 attempts at forming a garden were observed at one of the points of 

 Sarah's Bosom, and turnips, cabbages and potatoes were growing 

 finely, which if left undisturbed, will soon cover this portion of the 

 island." 



The "Maori potato," as it used to be called, has been largely 

 displaced by modern varieties, but it still persists in the neighbour- 

 hood of old Maori cultivations. Thus it was found comparatively 

 recently in waste ground near the sea on Otago Peninsula and on 

 the southern side of Blueskin Bay. The Maoris have practically dis- 

 appeared from there, and only a few half-castes remain in the neigh- 

 bourhood, where formerly there was a large native population, but 

 the wild cabbage and the wild potato still persist. The latter had a 

 very firm tuber, rather bluish in colour, and very solid when cooked. 



Mr Elsdon Best tells me that some varieties of potatoes still linger 

 in scrub and fern in the North Island. In the Uriwera country he 

 has found them growing in land now covered by blackberries, but 

 which were Maori clearings 50 years ago. The potato haulms grew 



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