THE TERCENTENARY OF THE INTRODUCTION OF POTATOS. 225 
Youglial, near Cork, and they were cherished and cultivated 
for food in that county long before their value was known 
in England, though they were carried over from Ireland 
to Lancashire. The great English botanist Gerard planted 
Potatos in his garden, and here we know the exact year, viz. 
1596, It is therefore probable that he obtained them from Sir 
Walter, who may have introduced them in 1595. Gerard re- 
commended them, however, merely as a delicate dish, not as 
common food ; and Parkinson mentions 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. For a long time they were, in fact, used only as dainty 
bits, and in a written book for housekeeping kept by Queen 
Anne, the wife of James I. (1603-1625), it is stated that a small 
quantity of Potatos were purchased at two shillings a pound. 
The Government, through the Royal Society (as I found some- 
where, but have mislaid the reference), tried to push the culti- 
vation after 1663, but progress was slow. In English books on 
gardening of the year 1719, as in that by the famous nurserymen 
London and Wise, the Potato was not even mentioned, and 
Bradley speaks of them as inferior to Skirrets and Radishes. 
Only in the eighteenth century did they become better known 
and more cultivated in England ; yet they were chiefly found 
in the gardens of peers and rich men up to about 1784. We 
find, however, that already 1,700 acres in the county of Essex 
alone were planted with Potatos for the supply of the London 
market in the year 1796. What enormous quantities will be 
required for the same purpose now ! It may be that by culti- 
vation and by means of raising new varieties from seed the 
Potato has been very much improved during the last fifty years ; 
otherwise it is strange that Cobbett, in his "English Gardener " of 
1838, should say that he will not have the Potato cultivated as 
a substitute for bread, as it has been established by evidence 
taken before Committees of the House of Commons that to raise 
Potatos for the purpose would be a thing mischievous to the 
nation ; and John Sheehan said of the Paddy-go-easy gentry, 
as he called the intensely Celtic race, that old Cobbett used to 
say if the Potatos were swept away from the face of Ireland, 
and poor Paddy inspired with the idea that he must feed on beef 
and mutton and bread, he would work as hard as any fellow in 
