September 20,1883. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
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COMING EVENTS 
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18th Sunday after Trinity. 
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Paris Show (five days). 
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Sale of Nursery Stock at Eaton, Norwich. 
HISTORY OF THE POTATO. 
HE annual International Potato Exhibition at 
the Crystal Palace which was held last week 
invariably attracts much public attention to the 
familiar tuber; and as the memories of the 
abundant and diverse varieties there shown are 
still fresh in the minds of visitors, the present 
time is not unsuitable to briefly review the history 
of this indispensable vegetable. Very gradual has 
been its progress in public favour, and never until within 
the last ten or twelve years has so much attention been given 
to the production of new varieties or the improvement of 
previously existing forms. The Potato trade is now, how¬ 
ever, one of the most important departments of many large 
seed-houses, while some firms devote themselves specially to 
it. Varieties of standard excellence are being continually 
added to those of which the merits have been already proved, 
and it is generally admitted that this is the only way in which 
the constitution of the Potato can be preserved. That some 
of the “novelties” fail to satisfy the requirements of ex¬ 
perienced horticulturists must be expected; but the general 
benefit due to these persevering raisers is undeniably great, 
and it is to be hoped that they will continue their efforts in 
the same direction. 
There is every reason to believe that Chili, and especially 
the neighbourhood of Quito, is the native country of the 
Potato. It is there now found in a wild state ; its slightly 
bitter tubers have been thence imported of late years ; and 
cultivation has gradually raised from those tubers plants now 
producing crops of excellent Potatoes. "We learn, also, from 
Peter Cieca and Molina that when the Spanish navigators 
first visited Chili and Peru, their inhabitants cultivated and 
ate a tuberous-rooted plant which they called papas. Molina 
says there are two kinds—the wild, having small bitter tubers, 
and the other, improved by culture, so as to have tubers 
grateful to the palate. 
The Spaniards first visited South America in the year 
1492, and there is no rational doubt of this being the earliest 
period in which the Potato became known to Europeans. 
Clusius and some others have surmised that the araclddna 
described by Theophrastus was the same plant, although the 
suggestion does not appear with a single reason to sustain it; 
but it seems to us that the arachidna is identical with the 
aracidna of Pliny (“Hist.” lib. xxi., cap. 20), and this appears 
to have been synonymous with our Truffle. Pliny says it 
was a root having no leaf, or stem, or any other part above 
ground. Cortucius had a similarly groundless opinion as to 
the identity of the Potato with the picnocomm of Dioscorides. 
This certainly was not the Potato, for it is described as grow¬ 
ing wild in southern Europe in stony places, as having acrid 
leaves, and seeds narcotic, producing heavy disturbed sleep. 
The Spaniards imported the Potato into Spain, where 
it was called battata, from the resemblance the tubers bore to 
those of the Sweet Potato (Convolvulus battata), and from 
thence it was communicated to Italy. This was at the close 
of the fifteenth or early in the sixteenth century ; yet at the 
latter period the Potato was so little known, even to botanists, 
that Lobel, in his “ Plantarum sen Stirpium Historia,” 
published at Antwerp in 1576, has no mention of it, though 
he describes and figures the Sweet Potato. Gerarde in 
England, however, and Caspar Bauhin at Basel, both in 
the year 1526, gave notices of their acquaintance with it, yet 
still evidently as a rarity. 
Caspar Bauhin, in his “ Phytopinax seu Enumeratio 
Plantarum,” published at Basel in 1596, first bestowed upon 
it the botanical names it still retains—Solanum tuberosum ; 
and his description is also the first occurring that is full as 
well as accurate. Some of the particulars intimate a know¬ 
ledge of the consequences of certain modes of treatment that 
we have been lately and, it would seem, mistakenly, con¬ 
sidering of recent discovery. The root, he says, is round, 
but not completely so, of a tawny or dark reddish colour, 
and is usually dug out of the earth in the winter, being 
replanted in the spring. “ Nevertheless, if left in the soil it 
will again vegetate in the spring. Very often the root be¬ 
comes rotten after it has put forth the stem.” It was known 
as the Spanish or Indian pappar, and endured without diffi¬ 
culty the climate of Europe, for he had seen it in the open 
gardens of some physicians in the Netherlands. 
In his “ Prodromus,” published in 1671, Bauhin gives a 
drawing of the Potato, showing the tubers as both round and 
oblong, and enters still more fully into its description. He 
says it was first brought from Virginia to England, was 
thence exported to France, and from the latter country was 
distributed to other parts of Europe. In Virginia it is called 
openawek, as is stated by Peter Cieca, and in Gomara’s History 
of the Indies. About Quito it was called papas, and thence 
it was sometimes called the Indian or Spanish papas, and 
in Germany grublingbaum —that is, the tuber-bearing shrub. 
Bauhin says that he first delineated it in 1590 from a speci¬ 
men in the garden of Dr. Scholtz, who probably received it 
from Clusius. 
Peter de Sivry, Lord of Walhain, had the Potato in 1587 
from a friend of the Pope’s legate in Flanders. It was. 
brought from Italy under the name of tortufoli, a name- 
applied to all underground tubers by the Italians. The- 
Lord of "Walhain gave two of the tubers to Clusius in 1588. 
—(“ Clusius Historia Plant.") 
Our countryman, Gerarde, in 1596, specifies the Potato- 
under the title of Papus hyspanicus, in the catalogue of 
plants cultivated by him in his garden in Holborn. In his 
“ Herball,” published the year following, he describes the 
Potato accurately. After particularising the Sweet Potato, 
which he calls “ Sisarum Peruvianum, sine Batata His- 
panarum, Potatus or Potatoes,” he proceeds to the considera¬ 
tion of the common Potato, under the title of “ Potatoes of 
Virginia, Battata Virginians sive Virginianorum et Pappus.” 
The woodcut and the description demonstrate that the plant 
he had before him was our common Potato ; and he proceeds 
to observe that “ it groweth naturally in America, where it 
was discovered, as reporteth C. Clusius ; since which time I 
have received roots thereof from Virginia, otherwise called 
Norembega, which grow and prosper in my garden as in their 
own native country.” At the end of the preface is a portrait 
of Gerarde, and it deserves notice that he holds in his hand 
a sprig of the Potato—leaves, flowers, and fruit—as if ha 
considered it one of the most remarkable novelties of hie 
time. After stating the time of its blooming, &c., Gerarde- 
adds, “ The Indians call it papus (meaning the roots), by 
which name the common Potatoes (Sweet) are known to therm. 
We have the name proper unto it mentioned in the title, 
because it hath not only the shape and proportion of Pota¬ 
toes, but also the pleasant taste and virtues of the same; so 
we may call it in English Potatoes of America or Virginia. 
Being likewise a food, as also a meat for pleasure, either 
roasted in the embers, or boiled, and eaten with oil, vinegar, 
and pepper, or dressed any other way by the hand of some 
cunning in cookery.” 
In 1633 “ Thomas Johnson, citizen and apothecary,” 
