HISTORY OF THE POTATO. 
31 
which I know of by any English writer is in Gerard, 
who mentions, in his herbal, receiving some roots from 
Virginia, and planting them in his garden near London 
as a curiosity, in the year 1597, All the multiform 
tales which we have of its introduction by Hawkins, 
shipwrecked vessels, Raleigh, and his boiling the apples 
instead of the roots, are merely traditional fancies, or 
modern inventions, with little or no probability for sup- 
port. There is some possibility that Sir Walter Raleigh 
might have introduced the potato into Ireland from 
America, when he returned in 1584, or rather after his 
last voyage, eleven years later ; but if so, it was much 
confined in its culture, and slowly acquired estimation, 
even in that island ; for Dr. Campbell does not admit 
that it was known there before the year 1610, fifteen 
years after Sir Walter’s final return. In England it 
seems to have been yet more tardy in obtaining notice ; 
for the first mention which I can find, wherein this 
tuber is regarded as possessing any virtue, is by that 
great man Sir Francis Bacon, who investigated nature 
from the “ cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hys- 
sop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of 
beasts, and of fowls, and of fishes, and of creeping 
things,” in his history of u Life and Death,” written, 
probably, in retirement after his disgrace. He observes, 
that “ if ale was brewed with one-fourth part of some 
fat root, such as the potado, to three-fourths of grain, it 
would be more conducive to longevity than with grain 
alone.” It was thus full twenty-four years after its be- 
ing planted by Gerard, that the nutritive virtues of this 
root appear to have been understood : but with us there 
seems to have been almost an antipathy against this 
root as an article of food, which can scarcely excite 
surprise, when we consider what a wretched sort must 
have been grown, which one writer tells us was very 
near the nature of Jerusalem artichokes, but not so good 
or wholesome ; and that they were to be roasted and 
sliced, and eaten with a sauce composed of wine and 
sugar ! Even Philip Miller, who wrote his account not 
quite seventy years ago, says “ they were despised by 
the rich, and deemed only proper food for the meaner 
