Southwest Museum Leaflets 



During the 45 years that whites have been in the New 

 World, they have improved many agricultural products, but 

 they have not developed from its wild growth a single major 

 agricultural product, with the possible exception of guayule 

 (gwah-yoo'-lay) ; whereas the Indians developed more than 

 twenty important products; and in addition they cultivated 

 or utilized a great number of wild growths, — all of which 

 acquired by the world aggregate more than half of its present 

 agricultural wealth. 



Crops that were acquired from the Indians fall into three 

 classes: first and most important were those the Indians devel- 

 oped from wild growths and skilfully cultivated, such as 

 corn; second, those that were taken over from the wilds with- 

 out changing their character, and were cultivated by the In- 

 dians in their gardens and orchards, such as the avocado; and, 

 third, the plants that in their wild state were utilized by the 

 Indians for leaves, bark, roots, fiber, seeds, or such gums as 

 rubber and copal. 



Following are some important crops adopted from the In- 

 dians, arranged approximately in the order of their value as 

 products at the present time, with some current theories as 

 to their dim and distant past. 



Potatoes — The word potato comes from the Taino Indian 

 word batata, which Columbus found in use in Haiti for what 

 now is usually called the sweet-potato. 



The sweet-potato had been developed from wild root-tubers, 

 from an unknown source, but probably in Brazil, from a vine 

 of the morning-glory family; and its pre-Columbian distri- 

 bution was over much of South America and into North 

 America. 



In 15 65 the sweet-potato was obtained on the northern 

 coast of South America by Sir John Hawkins, who probably 

 was the first to take it to England with its then current name 

 of potato, a name which persisted in England for many years. 

 This is what Shakespeare referred to when he had Falstaff say, 

 "Let the sky rain potatoes." And it was the sweet-potato that 

 Sir Walter Raleigh grew on his estates in Ireland under the 

 name of potato. 



There are two principal classes of sweet-potatoes, known as 

 the dry-fleshed and the moist-fleshed. In some areas the moist- 

 fleshed carries the name of yam; and in the Southern States 

 all sweet-potatoes often are called yams. The word yam is 

 from Senegal in western Africa, where nyami means "to eat," 

 and is there applied to various edible roots and tubers. It is 



