December 9, 1E88. 3 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
521 
over the plant, filling in the spaces between with the smaller ones. One 
advantage in the culture of this plant is that it is not subject to any insect 
pest. Nothing seems to harm it beyond perhaps a lit.le green fly'in the 
spring, which can easily be destroyed by fumigating with tobacco.” 
THE POTATO TERCENTENARY. 
December 1st to 4th. 
In the brief notice we gave last week respecting the Exhibition of 
Potatoes at St. Stephen’s Hall, Westminster, we were only able to give a 
few details concerning the competition, reserving a fuller report of the 
proceedings until the present issue. Had the International Potato Show 
been held at the Crystal Palace this year as usual, it is probable that the 
time for development, and cannot be made too widely known to ensure 
even a moderate degree of success, and it is regretable that in this case 
these points seem to have been partially disregarded until it was too late. 
In addition to the awards at the Exhibition noticed in this Journal list 
week a silver medal was awarded to Mr. James Lye, Cliffe Hall, Market 
Lavington, for a new variety of Potato named Clipper, a white round tuber 
of good size, with rather deep eye3, but it cooked well, and was pronounced 
to be of excellent quality. 
The Conference proceedings were opened on Thursday, December 2nd, 
at midday, Mr. W. Carruthers, F.R S., President of the Linnean Society, in 
the chair, by Mr. W. S. Mitchell, M.A., reading a paper on the “ Historic 
Consideration of the Question, Whence came the Potato to England?” The 
substance of this interesting and exhaustive paper was originally published 
Fig. 72. —Trachelium cceruleuh. 
Conference would have been associated with it, as the subject had been 
proposed early in the season. An elaborate article on the history of the 
introduction of the Potato to this country which appeared in Nature called 
especial attention to the matter in establishing the date as 1586, and the 
fact that three centuries had elapsed since the first appearance of this 
important tuber in Europe was some justification for an attempt to celebrate 
the occasion by an exhibition of Potatoes and a conference of growers and 
others interested in the subject. 
The plan sketched out was to oflfer gold, silver, and bronze medals for 
collections of Potatoes, and a silver medal for the best new variety ; then 
to provide a department for the exhibition of old botanical, horticultural, 
and other works containing references to the discovery, introduction, or 
early cultivation of the plant. To complete the scheme a conference was 
arranged at which papers were to be read upon the history and culture of 
the Potato, to be followed by discussion. This plan was an excellent one, 
and it was carried into operation ; but, owing probably to the late period at 
which the arrangements were completed and the remarkably quiet manner 
in which they had been conducted, the affair failed to attract the public 
attention that it deserved. Schemes of this kind require a considerable 
in Nature, as already mentioned, and its chief object was to point out as 
the result of the reader’s investigations that the Potato was introduced to 
England by Sir Francis Drake in 1586. It was thought that Drake had 
either obtained tubers from South America on one of his expeditions, or 
that he had captured a Spanish vessel containing some amongst their 
stores, either as articles of food or as curiositPs for conveyance to the 
mother country. Probably, after relieving Raleigh’s Virginian Colony, 
these tubers had been brought to England, the ships proceeding homewards 
direct from there, thus giving rise to the belief that they were originally 
obtained from Virginia, as Gerard stat s. Much evidence was adduced in 
support of these conclusions, but in a discussion which followed Mr. Car¬ 
ruthers said that he could not give entire support to the opinion, as he 
thought it probable that the Potato might have reached portions of North 
America prior to the visits of Europeans, a view which was to some extent 
corroborated at a later stage of the proceedings by Mr. Clements Markham, 
C.B., F.R.S., who gave some particu'ars indicating the extreme probability 
that communication had existed between Peru and North America at an 
early period. As further illustrating Mr. Mitchell’s remarks, Sir Richard 
Pollock read a paper by Mr. W. Herries Pollock, M.A., on “ Drake’s Ex- 
