30 
INTRODUCTION OF THE POTATO. 
equally due to other crops : but the cultivation of this 
tuber requires that the soil should be moved and turned 
repeatedly ; it is generally twice at least plowed, trench- 
ed by the spade for sets, hacked when the plant is above 
ground, then hoed into ridges, and finally, the whole 
turned over again when the crop is got out ; thus is the 
soil six times turned and exposed to the sun and air ; 
and it is kept perfectly free from weeds of all kinds — 
both of which circumstances are essentially beneficial 
to the soil. If the potato must have manure, it does 
not exhaust all the virtues of it, as the crop which suc- 
ceeds it, be it wheat or barley , sufficiently manifests : 
there are, besides, exertions made by the renter to ob- 
tain this profitable crop, that greatly improve the farm, 
and which a less promising one would not always stimu- 
late him to attempt— he will cut up his ditch banks, 
collect the waste soil of his fields, composting it with 
lime and other matters as a dressing for the potato crop, 
and it answers well : the usual returns from corn, and 
fluctuations in the price, will not often induce him to 
make such exertions. All this is no robbery of the 
farm-yard, but solely a profitable reward and premium 
to industry. 
Much has been said and written about the potato ; 
but as some erroneous ideas have been received con- 
cerning its early introduction into Europe, perhaps a 
slight sketch of the history of this extraordinary root 
may not be uninteresting,* — a summary of the perusal 
of multitudes of volumes, papers, treatises ! 
The sweet Spanish potato (convolvulus batatus), a 
native of the East, was very early dispersed throughout 
the continent of Europe ; and all the ancient accounts, 
in which the name of potato is mentioned, relate exclu- 
sively to this plant, a convolvulus: but our inquiry at 
present regards that root now in such extensive culti- 
vation with us, which is an American plant (solanum 
tuberosum). Perhaps the first mention that is known 
concerning the root is that of the great German botanist, 
Clusius, in 1588, who received a present of two of the 
tubers in that year from Flanders ; and there is a plate 
of it among his rare plants. The first certain account 
