200 CULINARY OR KITCHEN GARDEN. 



poisonous hemlock ; and the berries, although in 

 a less degree, partake of the same nature also ; 

 while the tubers, when cooked, afford a whole- 

 some and nutritive food. The water in which 

 potatoes have been boiled is of a very suspi- 

 cious character, and has been employed in the 

 destruction of aphides on other plants — all these 

 properties being, no doubt, known to the late 

 Dr Neill, when he asks, " Who could, a priori, 

 have expected to have found the most useful 

 plant among the natural family of the Lurid<e, 

 several of which are deleterious, and all of 

 which are forbidding in their aspect 1 ?" The 

 people in Burgundy, long after its introduction 

 into Europe, were interdicted from either culti- 

 vating or using the potato, as it was " deemed 

 a poisonous and a mischievous root." Liebig 

 concludes that the deleterious or poisonous 

 alkaloid found in the leaves and stem of the 

 plant is formed in and around the shoot, where 

 it germinates in darkness ; but there is no evi- 

 dence that the tubers are thereby rendered in- 

 jurious or deleterious — or, if so, they are brought 

 to a wholesome state by the process of boiling 

 and roasting. 



The native habitat of the potato has not 

 been very correctly ascertained. According to 

 Mr Darwin, it grows wild in the islands of the 

 Chonos Archipelago, in great abundance in the 

 sandy shelly soil near the sea-beach. Mr Low 

 asserts it grew as far south as latitude 50°. 

 Humboldt sought for it in vain in the moun- 

 tains of Peru and New Granada. Euiz and 

 Pavon discovered it in a wild state at Chancay, 

 on the Peruvian coast — a circumstance far more 

 recently confirmed by Mr Caldcleugh, who sent 

 native tubers to the Horticultural Society of 

 London. Mr Cruikshanks, in letter to Sir W. J. 

 Hooker, says, " This wild potato is very com- 

 mon at Valparaiso ; it grows chiefly on the hills 

 near the sea. It is often found in mountainous 

 districts far from habitations, and never in the 

 immediate vicinity of fields and gardens." Mr 

 Meyer affirms that he found it not only in the 

 mountains of Chili, but also in the Cordillera of 

 Peru. This plant appears from other autho- 

 rities to extend over a large extent of latitude, 

 and hence it is by no means improbable that 

 each of these travellers did find it in an indi- 

 genous state at the places mentioned. Indeed, 

 from a remark of Mr Darwin's, this appears suf- 

 ficiently probable, as he found the same plant 

 on the sterile mountains of Central Chili, where 

 not a drop of rain falls for more than six 

 months, and within the damp forests of the 

 islands in the Chonos Archipelago. 



The date of the introduction of the potato 

 into Britain is involved in nearly as much un- 

 certainty as the exact spot of its nativity. It is 

 generally believed that the first tubers were 

 brought to England from Virginia by the colo- 

 nists who were sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh 

 in 1584, and returned in 1586. Phillips, in 

 " History of Cultivated Vegetables," vol. ii. 

 p. 80, however, thinks it uncertain whether Sir 

 Walter or his people brought it, or whether it 

 was not afterwards sent him by Sir Thomas 

 Grenville, or by Mr Lane, who was the first 

 governor of Virginia. Herrist, who went out 



with them, wrote an account which will be 

 found in De Bry's "Collection of Voyages," 

 vol. i., under the title " Roots" He describes a 

 plant called openawk thus : " The roots are 

 round, some large as a walnut, others much 

 larger ; they grow in damp soils, many hanging 

 together as if fixed on ropes ; they are good 

 food either boiled or roasted." Gerard describes 

 two sorts of potatoes, the one evidently the 

 sweet potato (Ipomcea batatus), which was sup- 

 posed to possess an invigorating property. The 

 other sort was evidently our common sort, 

 which he calls Batata Virginiana, sive Virgini- 

 anorum. To the continent of Europe the potato 

 had been introduced before its arrival in this 

 country, and it is believed to have first found its 

 way into Spain in the early part of the sixteenth 

 century, from the mountainous parts of South 

 America, where around Quito it is called 

 papas. From Spain it reached Italy, and 

 shortly after must have been brought into 

 Belgium, for Clusius informs us that he received 

 it at Vienna in 1598 from Mons, a city in 

 Hainault, to which it had been carried from 

 Italy by one of the attendants of the Pope's 

 legate. It appears to have spread rapidly 

 throughout Germany in Clusius's time. It 

 reached Ireland in 1610, and not 1566, as as- 

 serted by some writers, who most probably 

 mistook the common potato for the sweet 

 sort procured either from Spain or Italy, as 

 we have no account of its reaching Europe 

 so early, with the exception of the surmise 

 that Sir John Hawkins introduced it in 1563, 

 a surmise not supported by historic evidence. 

 It was certainly used as an article of food by 

 the Irish long before its utility was gene- 

 rally known in England. In 1684 it was cul- 

 tivated sparingly in Lancashire, from stock 

 said to have been accidentally thrown ashore by 

 a vessel wrecked on the coast ; while others 

 say it was carried over from Ireland, from the 

 estates of Sir Walter Raleigh near Cork. Be 

 this as it may, Lancashire has from about that 

 period been famed for the abundance and quality 

 of its potatoes, to which the mildness and 

 humidity of the climate greatly tends. Gerard 

 grew them in his garden in 1597, and recom- 

 mends their "being eaten as a delicate dish, 

 and not as common food." Parkinson appears 

 to have paid more attention to their cooking, 

 and recommends their being " roasted, and 

 steeped in sack and sugar, or baked with mar- 

 row and spices, and even preserved and candied 

 by the comfit-makers." Lord Bacon, who wrote 

 his " Natural History " shortly after the publi- 

 cation of Gerard's " Herbal," calls them potado- 

 roots, and gives a curious account of a method 

 of growing them in pots. In the early part of 

 the seventeenth century this root was grown in 

 the gardens of the nobility as a curious exotic. 

 Phillips, in " History of Cultivated Vegetables," 

 vol. ii. p. 85, says, " The potato appears to 

 have been a great delicacy in the time of James 

 the First; for in the year 1619 it is noticed 

 among the different articles provided for the 

 queen's household. The quantity supplied was 

 extremely small, and the price high, being at 

 that time one shilling per pound." 



