Maris Work on the Farm 345 



cannot be said to be much more felicitous than these. 

 For the potato, like its cousins the tomato and the 

 tobacco, is a nightshade ; and the batata, after which 

 it is named, is a convolvulus, a native of Brazil. The 

 Brazilian batata bears tubers, which were imported 

 into England from Spain in considerable quantities 

 before the 'potato' was known, or at least before it 

 came into general use ; but the two are much alike in 

 appearance, and the later comer was so much the 

 more popular, that the name of the convolvulus was 

 transferred to it, and the true batatas came to be known 

 as 'sweet potatoes.' To make the confusion still 

 worse, the potato has been introduced into Brazil, 

 where it was formerly unknown, and is there called 

 the * English batata.' 



As we have no means of telling when the first 

 migrations of man took place, it is quite vain for us to 

 guess at the date of the earliest migrations of such 

 plants as he carried with him. The earliest wander- 

 ings of both are equally involved in obscurity, but we 

 know that they began long before history has anything 

 to say about them ; and we know, too, that cultivated 

 plants had been brought from Asia to Europe even in 

 these far-off, dateless ages. 



The lake-dwellers of Switzerland, who built their 

 habitations on piles, and used none but stone imple- 

 ments, knew something of agriculture ; and, from the 

 blackened remains of grain found, we know that they 

 cultivated three kinds of wheat, two of barley, and two 

 of millet, which are none of them natives of Europe, 

 and must have been brought at some time or other 

 from Asia 



