

Curious History of the Cinnamon Vine 



By S. T. Homans, Y N o e r w k 



A SUGGESTED SUBSTITUTE FOR THE POTATO THAT BECAME 

 A UNIVERSAL FAVORITE FOR ITS FLOWERS— THE STORY 

 OF ITS INTRODUCTION AND A BIT OF RECENT HISTORY 



Connected 

 with the story 

 of the introduc- 

 tion of the cinnamon into America 

 are many questions of that day — 

 political, agricultural and socio- 

 logical; particularly its attempted 

 rivalry of the potato. 



The common white potato, 

 with which we are all familiar, 

 has been known to the English 

 since the days of Sir Walter 

 Raleigh, who took the tubers to 

 England in 1586. The native 

 country of the potato is a matter 

 of doubt, but common report 

 refers to Peru. It is mentioned 

 by a Spanish chronicler as early 

 as 1553 and it seems highly prob- 

 able that it was introduced into 

 Europe by the Spaniards. 

 Though known to the botanists 

 for some time, its adoption as 

 an esculent was very tardy. It 

 belongs to the family Solanaceae 

 to which also belong the tomato, 

 eggplant, bitter sweet, and the 

 night-shades, and is known as 

 Solanum tuberosum. 



The potato, on account of its 

 remarkable nutritive qualities, 

 became the principal article of 

 diet, especially with the laboring 

 classes, of Ireland, to whom it 

 also appealed as producing a 

 maximum of harvest, for a mini- 

 mum of labor. "One man being 

 able to plant sufficient to supply 

 forty men." 



THE cinnamon vine is so well known 

 in countryside gardens rambling over 

 fence or porch that it has almost 

 dropped from public regard into the 

 rank of the "too common" things. Yet it has 

 a history and association with that grand old 

 pioneer horticulturist, William Prince of Flush- 

 ing, L. I., that may well make us proud. Inci- 

 dentally it may be observed that Prince's nurse- 

 ries gave us other plants that are everywhere 

 popular to-day. 



In 1845 there appeared a potato disease, 

 known variously as mildew, murrein and rot, 

 by which whole crops rotted in the ground. 

 The year following was the year of the famine 

 in Ireland, from which thousands died, and it 

 was then the Corn laws were abolished and it 

 was then also that began the great emigration 

 from Ireland. Disease also attacked the potato 

 in America and baffled all efforts at control. 



One of the most famous pioneer nurserymen 



of America 



Reproduction of an old print which was distributed in 1856, by W. R, 

 Prince & Co.. when introducing the yam as a substitute for the 

 potato. The original was 17-f inches high x 14 \ inches wide and showed 

 the plant in actual size 



whose nurseries 

 were second 

 only to the Bar- 

 tram gardens at Philadelphia, 

 Mr. Wm. Prince, became inter- 

 ested in finding a substitute for 

 the potato, provided that it was 

 found impossible to check the 

 disease. 



In China they had a potato, 

 which was very carefully and ex- 

 tensively cultivated, being as gen- 

 erally used as our potato here. 

 This was Dioscorea Batatas, known 

 by others as D. Japonica and 

 divaricata, and familiarly as the 

 Chinese yam. "According to the 

 older botanists: "It is a shrub 

 twining leftwards; with a vertical 

 root, covered by a yellow-brown 

 epidermis, emitting many short 

 rootlets, and having an indistinct 

 groove lengthwise. The stem is 

 round, and as thick as a goose 

 quill, violet with white spots, 

 rooting easily when left creeping 

 on the ground. The tuber pene- 

 trates about three feet deep, 

 straight down into the soil, is 

 thickest toward the lower end, 

 attaining the size of a man's wrist, 

 and tapers upward to the thick- 

 ness of the little finger. It has 

 milky mucilaginous, sweetish acrid 

 sap and scarcely any woody fibres. 

 It is cooked by boiling the same 

 length of time as our common 

 potato, and either boiled or baked 

 becomes mellow and dry, as fine 



