THE POTATO. 



273 



a date in that island as to make it equally pro- 

 bable that it is a native vegetable of the country. 

 It is found, however, that the plant carried to 

 Ireland by Captain Hawkins, in 1666, was the 

 Spanish batata, or sweet potatoe. The claim to 

 its greater antiquity in that country was made 

 by Sir Lucius O'Brien, who stated to Mr Arthur 

 Young that the venerable Bede mentioned this 

 plant as being in Ireland about the year 700. 

 Sir Lucius did not, however, point out the pas- 

 sage containing any proof of his assertion; and 

 the potato, largely as it is cultivated in that 

 country, has not yet made out its title to a place 

 in the indigenous flora of Ireland. 



Gerarde mentions in his Herbal, published 

 1697, that he cultivated this plant in his garden, 

 where it succeeded as well as in its native country. 

 He gives a drawing, which he distinguishes by 

 the name of Virginian potato, having, as he 

 states, received the roots from Virginia, otherwise 

 called Nozembega. It was, however, considered 

 by him as a rarity, for he recommends that the 

 root should be eaten as a delicate dish, and not 

 as common food. 



From the authority of more than one writer, 

 it would appear that the potato was brought into 

 southern Europe through a different channel, 

 and at an earlier period than the introduction of 

 the root from Virginia into this country. Clu- 

 sius relates that he obtained this root at Vienna 

 in 1698, from the governor of Mons in Hainault, 

 who had procured it in the preceding year from 

 Italy, where, in common with the truffle, it had 

 received the name of taratouffli. Peter Cieca, in 

 his Chronicle, printed in 1653, chap. xl. p. 49, 

 relates that the inhabitants of Quito and its 

 vicinity, besides producing maize, cultivated a 

 tuberous root which was used as food under the 

 name of papas : this, it is affirmed, is the same 

 plant which had been transplanted to the south 

 of Europe, and which Clusius received from 

 Hainault. 



Though now so extensively used, the value 

 of this root as an esculent, was not perfectly ap- 

 preciated for a great length of time in this 

 country, during which period it was indeed only 

 cultivated in gardens, and that as a curious exotic. 

 The potato was considered as a great delicacy iii 

 the reign of James the First. At that period, 

 though it foi-med one of the articles provided 

 for the household of the queen, the quantity 

 used was extremely small, and exorbitantly 

 dear, being at the price of two shillings per 

 pound. This esculent remained equally scarce 

 throughout the turbulent times of the succeeding 

 reign, and during the Commonwealth. Its cul- 

 tivation very gradually spread in different parts 

 of Ireland, and also into Lancashire, but not till 

 nearly a hundred years after the discovery of 

 Virginia by Raleigh. Mr Buckland of Somer- 

 setshire, in the year 1663, drew the attention of 



the Royal Society to its value, earnestly recom- 

 mending the general cultivation of the potato 

 throughout the kingdom to guard against a 

 famine. This appeal was not made in vain. A 

 committee was appointed to inquire into its 

 merits, and all those Fellows of the society who 

 had lands adapted for the growth of the potato, 

 were entreated to plant them with that vegeta- 

 ble; while Mr Evelyn was requested to notice 

 the subject at the close of his Sylva. This cele- 

 brated man appears, however, not to have been 

 aware of the importance of the potato as an 

 article of food, for he did not mention it until 

 more than thirty years after that period, and 

 then in rather slighting terms. In his Kalen- 

 darium Plantarum, the first gardener's calendar 

 published in Britain, he thus writes: Plant po- 

 tatoes in your worst ground. Take them up in 

 November for winter spending, there wUl enough 

 remain for a stock, though ever so exactly 

 gathered. In another of his works, Acetarius, 

 he remarks that the small green fruit or apples 

 of the potatoe make an excellent salad. This as- 

 sertion has not, Jiowever, been verified by ex- 

 perience. 



The zeal of the Royal Society to promote the 

 growth of this vegetable, failed for a long time 

 to exercise much influence upon the habits of 

 the nation; and, if we may judge from the opinions 

 which were published respecting the plant, we 

 must conclude that the necessities of the poor of 

 Ireland, who have ever been left too entirely to 

 their own resources, did more to promote the 

 culture of potatoes than all the labours of the 

 learned, and the philanthropy of the patriotic. 

 At the end of the seventeenth century one writer 

 on gardening, indeed, admits that "potatoes are 

 much used in Ireland and America as bread, and 

 maybe propagated vvithad vantage topoorpeople." 

 Woolridge, who wrote in 1687, twenty-four 

 years after the appeal of Mr Buckland, describes 

 potatoes as being very useful in "forcing fruits," 

 stating that they are planted in several places in 

 this country to good advantage; he adds, "I do 

 not hear that it has been yet essayed whether 

 they may not be propagated in great quantities 

 for the use of swine and other cattle." The cele- 

 brated Ray, who began to publish his Historia 

 Plantarum in 1686, takes no farther notice of 

 this vegetable than by saying that it is dressed 

 in the same manner as Spanish batatas. Merritt, 

 who wrote in the following year, records that 

 potatoes were then cultivated in many fields in 

 Wales, but in what part of the principality he 

 does not mention. 



On the other hand. Lisle, who made obser- 

 vations on husbandry from the year 1694 to 

 1722, is wholly silent about the potato. In 

 Mortimer's Gardener's Kalendar for 1708, this 

 plant is directed to be sown in February; and, 

 as if its character had not been generally known, 

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