CHAPTER II 

 HISTORY 



The early history of the potato is a matter of some 

 doubt among historians, but all are agreed that it came 

 originally from the high lands of Peru and Chile, where it 

 is still found growing wild. 



The Spaniards first discovered the potato in the neigh- 

 borhood of Quito, Ecuador, where it was cultivated by the 

 natives. According to Pedro Ciefa de L6on, who seems 

 to have made first written mention of the potato in his 

 "Spanish Chronicles of Peru" (1550), the inhabitants 

 subsisted largely on maize and what they called "papas" 

 and "quinua." The former is the Indian name for 

 potato and the latter "is a plant about the height of a 

 man and has leaves like the blite of Mauritania, and a 

 small seed either red or white in color, from which is 

 prepared a drink, and a food comparable to our rice." 



Potatoes were used by the aborigines in place of bread, 

 and were also dried in the sun to preserve them. They 

 were usually cooked, but often made into flour. There 

 was evidence of long-continued practice of cultivation, 

 however crude. The potato, however, was and still is 

 wild in the mountainous regions of Chile and Peru. 



The potato was probably carried to Spain by explorers 

 in the sixteenth century. There is no definite record of 

 this first importation, but Rose believes that it was as 



14 



