to present-day potato growing, except the "potato-bugs,” for which it, 
together with other Solanaceous plants, long furnished a comfortable and 
acceptable home. Another species, S. Commersoni, now attracting atten- 
tion in Europe, is native to dry, rocky situations in Uruguay and Argen- 
tina. Solatium tuberosum, as the wild form of the common potato is 
called, is common in Chile and perhaps in other parts of the South 
American west coast region, where it to-day flourishes in as many varie- 
ties, though not in as desirable ones, as there are or ever have been in 
cultivation. According to DeCandolle and others, the potato has been 
cultivated in Peru for two thousand years or more, and it was from near 
Quito, Ecuador, in the forepart of the sixteenth century, that the Span- 
iards first brought it to Spain. From there it was taken to Italy and then 
to Belgium and France. So far as history tells us, the North American 
Indians did not cultivate it nor did the highly civilized Aztecs of Mexico. 
So the English colonists in Virginia probably secured the potato first from 
Spaniards, and either from their supplies or from those found in a 
captured Spanish ship, Thomas Herriot of the Sir Walter Raleigh expedi- 
tion introduced them into Ireland in 1585. The Irish planted them every- 
where and used them as a commissary in maintaining their opposition to 
English rule and this gave them the now widely used English name of 
"Irish potatoes.” Europe as a whole did not “fall in love at first sight” 
with the potato, and as late as 1771, only a few varieties were listed in the 
English catalogs. Frequent famines caused the Irish to appreciate its 
good qualities, while grain crop failures and attendant evils brought them 
into similar esteem as a field crop in Germany about 1772. The Presby- 
terian immigrants from Ireland introduced the potato to the New Eng- 
land colonists in 1718, although it is said to have been served at a Har- 
vard dinner in 1707 as a great and rare delicacy. The Peruvians made a 
bread called "chunno” from potatoes, while one of the early English 
herbalists mentions them as a delicacy and “no common food.” Another 
plant-lover, writing in 1640, says that in England potatoes were roasted, 
steeped in sack or sugar, or baked with marrow (an old country form 
of pumpkin) and spices, and even candied by the confectioners. In 1914 
in France occurred a unique exhibition, commemorating the work of Par- 
mentier in popularizing the potato among the French, and recalling the 
difficulties often experienced in changing a people’s food habits. Promi- 
nent Frenchmen, as well as Englishmen, had tried various expedients, 
such as “society dinners,” etc., to popularize the potato, but their efforts 
were of little avail. Parmentier’s attention to the value of potatoes as 
food came about through noticing the soldiers dig them up and roast them 
over the camp fire during the terrible Seven Years’ War, when food was 
extremely scarce. His investigations led him to devote his life toward 
popularizing them. He, like others, inaugurated potato feasts, the result 
of which made him so unpopular that he failed to be elected to a desired 
government office, the people fearing he would force them to live entirely 
on potatoes. Finally, he hit upon a successful scheme, based on the prin- 
ciple that “stolen sweets are sweeter.” The king annually held a military 
review on a piece of ground near Paris, noted for its extremely poor soil. 
The day after the review, Parmentier planted this land to two kinds of 
i 
