THE CULINARY GARDEN, 



295 



In Italy. Clusius cultivated, and disseminated it through Germany. Sir Walter 

 Raleigh, or some of his attendants, are supposed to have brought it into this country, 

 about 1586 from Virginia, and that it was planted by him on his estate of Youghall, 

 near Cork, where it was cultivated and used, long before its value was known in England. 



This excellent root was nearly condemned to destruction, by the apples or seed, 

 which it produces, being by mistake taken for the eatable part. Fortunately, the 

 spade discovered the real potato, and the root became rapidly a favourite eatable. 

 It, however, long continued to be considered rather a species of dainty, than as an 

 article of provision, nor was it till the close of the eighteenth century, that it was 

 supposed capable of guarding the country in which it was cultivated from the horrors 

 of a famine. 



The potatoes of Shakspeare and other writers of his time, were not the potatoes of 

 the present day, but the Convolvulus batatus or sweet potato, which were imported 

 from Spain, and in use before the present potato was known. 



" Let it rain ijolatocs and hail kissing comfits." 



Merry Wives of Windsor, Act. V, Scene 5. 



The potato appears to have been brought from Ireland to Lancashire, where it 

 has been, perhaps, more successfully cultivated, than in any other part of England. 

 Gerrard had them in his garden in 1597, and has given a figure of it in his Herbal, 

 under the name of liattata Firginiana, and recommends the roots to be eaten as 

 a delicate dish, but not as common food. They ought, he says, " to be either roasted 

 in the embers, or boiled and eaten with oil, vinegar, and pepper, or dressed some 

 other way by the hands of a skilful cook." 



Parkinson says, that the tubers were sometimes roasted, and steeped in sack and 

 sugar, or baked with marrow and spices, and even preserved and candied by the 

 comfit-makers. 



In 1663, the attention of the Royal Society was directed to the culture of the 

 potato, and some measures were taken to encourage the more general cultivation of 

 It on the score of national advantages. This measure brought the use of them to be 

 more generally understood, but still they were held in no high estimation. Even 

 after a hundred years had elapsed since their introduction, they were spoken of, as 

 being only a root used by the lower classes in Ireland, sometimes as a substitute for 

 bread, and occasionally boiled or roasted. Evelyn, who wrote in 1699, says " in 

 your worst ground plant potatoes, and take them up in November, gather them ever 

 so clean, still enough of the tubers will remain in the ground for a stock." Some of 

 the writers on horticulture at a later period, take no notice whatever of potatoes, and 

 others considered them less useful than either skirrets or parsneps. In Scotland, they 

 were received and cultivated with enthusiasm, and they now form the chief support 

 of thousands. At their first introduction, about the year 1725, which was as early 

 as they were generally known in England, they were cultivated only in a few gar- 

 dens in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and left in the ground for several years, and the 

 few wnich were annually irsed were merely picked out of the ground as the occasion 

 required, and the remainder were then covered with litter to protect them from the 

 frost. It was not till after 1740, or probably 1745 or 6, that they were even known 

 in the Highlands, and are said to have been introduced by the followers of Charles 

 Stuart They arc now cultivated by the natives of the most remote isles, with a 

 care and industry that are highly creditable to them, and the quality of the potatoes is 

 superior to those grown in the south of Scotland, or in many parts of England, in 

 more highly cultivated soils. They pay considerable attention to a change of seed 

 and soil once evrry three or four years, by procuring tubers for planting from a 

 dLstance. This circumstance, added to the potatoes being generally planted in what 



