332 THE POTATO AND ITS COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS. 



In 1664, one John Forster, gentleman, of Harslop in Buckinghamshire, 

 " invented and published (as he styles it) for the good of the poorer sorts," 

 a pamphlet, the first devoted to the culture of the potato, and bearing this 

 wordy title : " England's Happiness increased, or a sure and easy Remedy 

 against all succeeding Dear Years, by a Plantation of the Eoots called 

 Potatoes, whereof (with the addition of wheat flour) excellent, good, and 

 wholesome bread may be made every year, eight or nine months together, 

 for half the charges as formerly. Also, by the planting of these roots, 

 10,000 men in England and Wales who know not how to live, or what to do 

 to get a maintenance for their families, may of one acre of ground make 30Z. 

 per annum." In this treatise, besides rules for the cultivation, he gives 

 directions for making potato bread, potato biscuits, potato pudding, potato 

 custards, and potato cheese-cakes. 



Among the anecdotes told of Sir Walter Ealeigh, it is said that when 

 his gardener at Youghal, in the county of Cork, had raised to the full 

 maturity of " apples " — the potatoes which he had received from the 

 Knight as a fine fruit from America, — the man brought to his master one of 

 the apples, and asked if that were the fine fruit. Sir Walter having exa- 

 mined it, was, or feigned to be, so dissatisfied, that he ordered the weed to 

 be rooted out. The gardener obeyed, and in clearng out the weeds found 

 a bushel of potatoes. 



The potato, which is an annual, represents in the tubers developed from 

 the stem the perennial part of a plant. Like all annuals, the potato 

 exerts its chief efforts in developing flowers and fruit, and it has the power 

 of limiting the period of development when the extent and power of the 

 roots are increased. The potato differs from all those plants which are cul- 

 tivated for economical purposes in Europe, and can only be compared to 

 those orchideous plants which yield salep, and are not yet cultivated among 

 us. The tubers, both of the potato and of the salep plants, are nutritious, 

 and agree in this, that in the cells of the tubers, grains of starch, with more 

 or less azotised mucilage, are collected, while the cell-walls possess the 

 remarkable property of swelling up into a jelly, and thus becoming easily 

 digestible, when boiled with water. But, while the tuber of salep contains 

 only one bud or germ, the potato usually develops several, often many 

 germs. The potato plant continues to form tubers until the flowers appear, 

 after which it is employed in ripening those already formed. 



Not a portion of the potato but is subservient to the welfare and con- 

 venience of man. Its green tops are good boiled as spinach, and from its 

 leaves and flowers Dr Latham extracted an anodyne medicine. The blos- 

 soms yield a very beautiful yellow dye. From the stems is obtained, in 

 Austria, a soft and useful flax ; and if burned, they yield a good deal of 

 potash. The haulm or stems have often been patented as a paper- 

 making material, and so has the fibrous pulp of the root. 



In one of Evelyn's works, he remarks that the small green fruit or apples 

 of the potato make an excellent salad. This assertion has not, however, 

 since been verified by experience. When ripe and fermented, a good spirit 



