POTATOS. 
389 
on his estate of Youghall, near Cork, and that they were 
soon after carried into Lancashire. Gerarde and Park- 
inson however mention them as dehcacies for the con- 
fectioner and not as common food. Even so late as 
Bradley's time [1716, in his " Historia Plantaram Suc- 
culentarum "] they are spoken of as inferior to skirrets 
and radishes. 
*' The use of potatoes, however, became more and more 
known after the middle of the eighteenth century and 
has greatly increased in all parts of Britain within the 
last thirty years. It is also very general in Holland and 
many parts of France and Germany, and is increasing 
rapidly in Russia. In Spain and the East and West 
Indies they are not much cultivated owing to the heat of 
the climate ; but in all the temperate parts of North 
America, Australasia, and South America they are grown 
by the colonists. In China they are cultivated, but not 
extensively, owing to the slow progress which everything 
new makes in that country. Indeed, no root hitherto dis- 
covered is so well adapted for universal use as the tubers of 
the potatoe ; for, having no peculiarity of taste, and con- 
sisting chiefly of starch, their farina is nearly the same as 
that of grain. Hence with the flower [sic] of potatoes, 
puddings and such preparations as do not call the gluten 
of wheat-flower into action may be made equal to those 
of millet or rice, and excellent bread with a moderate 
proportion of good wheat-flour. Potatoe starch, indepen- 
dently of its use in the laundry and as a hair-powder, is 
considered an equally delicate food as sago or arrow-root. 
As starch and sugar are so nearly the same that the former 
is easily converted into the latter, the potatoe yields a spirit 
equal to that of malt by distillation and a wine or beer by 
the fermentative process." 
Monsieur Henry L. de Vilmorin, in his lecture on the best 
kinds of Potato, read before the Agricultural Society of Paris on 
January 30, 1888, mentions that towards the end of the sixteenth 
century the Potato was introduced directly into England, where 
it rapidly obtained a position amongst the common vegetables 
of the garden. On the Continent, however, its progress was 
