196 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
anthers^ whicli are succeeded by a green globose berry^ about 
balf an inch in diameter. Tbe tubers or potatoes produced by 
tbe plant are simply subterranean branches, arrested and 
thickened in their growth, in place of being elongated. The 
common idea that all the subterranean portions of a plant are 
roots, is quite erroneous ; for the production of leaf-buds or 
leaf-scars are the distinguished characteristics of a stem 
wherever situated ; and that the tuber or potato is a true stem 
is proved by the eyes on its surface, which are true leaf-buds. 
Hence the potato is propagated by cutting the tuber into 
pieces, when each piece, provided it has an eye, will grow and 
become an independent plant. 
The potato is a native of South America, and is found in 
abundance wild in the mountainous regions of Chili, Peru, 
and the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres. Its presence in 
Mexico, Virginia, and the Carolinas, where it was subsequently 
found, is probably not very ancient. It is thought that it may 
have been introduced there from South America by the first 
Spanish settlers. The potato was first grown by Sir Walter 
Baleigh, at Youghal, in Ireland, in 1586. The samples planted 
came from the Carolinas. The gardener who planted the 
tubers thought that the green potato apples were the potatoes, 
and carried them to his master, expressing his great disgust at 
such produce. Sir Walter, pretending to sympathize, told him 
to dig up the useless weeds, and throw them away. The 
gardener, in rooting out the plants, found the true potatoes, 
more than a bushel of them, and hurried back to his master in 
a very different humour, to show him the samples, and make 
known his discoverv. 

The soil and climate of Ireland are very favourable to the 
growth of good potatoes, and the plant appears to have 
rapidly grown into favour in Ireland, and was cultivated there 
as food long before its value was acknowledged in Great 
Britain. 
In both England and Scotland a prejudice against it existed 
owing to the poisonous character of the plants of the natural 
order to which it belongs and the resemblance of its flowers 
to those of the woody nightshade [Solanum dulcamara), an 
extremely common plant, well known to be poisonous. 
Almost everywhere the same prejudice prevailed; in France, 
especially, and it was not until a time of great scarcity, during 
the Bevolution, that its culture in that country became 
general. 
For more than a century and a half after its cultivation by 
Sir Walter Baleigh in Ireland, the potato was cultivated in 
flower gardens only in both England and Scotland. Even in 
J 725 tlie few potato plants in the gardens about Edinburgh 
