FERNS, FOSSILS AND FUEL 
now known as Virginia and North Carolina. The potato 
plant still grows wild in Chile, in a form clearly showing 
its close relationship to its cultivated cousins. The Euro¬ 
pean colonists quickly recognized the merits of the potato. 
It was first imported into Europe between 1580 and 1585, 
at first by the Spaniards and later by the English, at the 
time of Raleigh’s voyages to Virginia. The potato soon 
became one of the most important food plants in various 
countries of northern Europe, particularly in Ireland, 
whence the misleading term Irish potato . 
Sweet Potato (Ipomaea batatas): This plant also is 
undoubtedly of American origin, but not related to the 
common potato. When Columbus, on his return to Spain 
from his first voyage, offered her various products of 
the new lands he had discovered, sweet potatoes were 
included among them. The cultivation of this plant in 
Spain dates from the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) : While tobacco is not 
a food, it has, in the form of the after-dinner cigar, so 
close a relationship with dining, that some reference to 
the tobacco plant will be appropriate at this time. When 
Columbus made his well-known discovery in 1492, the 
custom of smoking and of chewing tobacco, as well as 
that of snuff-taking, was diffused over the greater part 
of this continent. It appears that the inhabitants of South 
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