1885.] Kitchen Garden Esculents of American Origin. 551 
Pincheira used to go and seek it for food.’ Prescott adds, on the 
authority of Xerez,? that along the coast of Peru he saw the hill- 
sides covered with the potato in cultivation. 
Pedro de Cieza de Leon, who traveled in Peru, 1532-5, says 
that the principal food of the Collao was potatoes, which “are 
like earth nuts.’ John Hawkins, in his second voyage, 1564, 
says the potatoes at Margarita island, “be the most delicate 
rootes that may be eaten, and doe far exceede their parsenips or 
carets,”* which, if sweet potatoes be not meant, indicate their 
introduction to the island, as the context parsenips and carets 
shows. Captains Preston and Sommers, 1595, my. at Dominica 
island “the Indians came unto us in canoes * “iti and 
brought in them plantains, pinos and potatoes,” which indicates 
how potatoes and other victuals were taken aboard ships as pro- 
visions. Under the name openawk Heriot describes, in 1584, 
what is supposed to be the potato in Virginia, and of which De 
Candolle thinks there can be no doubt. This fact would seem to 
indicate that potatoes in our quotation meant potato and not the 
sweet potato, It is quite probable that Hawkins carried the first 
potatoes to Virginia, for in 1565, after relieving the famine among 
the French on the banks of the River May (St. Johns), he sailed 
northward toward Virginia, which name included the Carolinas 
and a large extent of coast at this time, and had this tuber aboard 
as he brought tubers from Santa Fé de Bogota on this voyage 
into Ireland, as has been currently stated, and we know not upon 
what evidence Miller and Sir J. Banks believes these tubers to 
have been the sweet potato. What renders the opposite view 
more tenable is the course that ships customarily sailed, this 
being to Virginia by the way of the West Indies; and as well by 
the fact that Virginia received the potato from the beginning of 
its settlement. It is mentioned by Heriot, 1584, as already stated ; 
is noticed there again in 1609, in 1648,’ and again in 1649 under 
circumstances that can leave no doubt: “The West India pota- 
toe (by much more delicate and large than we have here grow- 
1 Flora Chiliena, v, 74. 
2 Conq. del Peru ap. Barcia, 111, 181. 
3 Travels. Hak. Soc, ed,, 3 
* Sec. Voy. Hak. Soc. ed., an 
5 Hak. Voy., IV, 62. 
“A Trae Decl. of Va., Lond., 1610, 13. 
T A perfect Desc. of Va., 1649, 4. 
