POTATO (Setanues taberoeum, Lin.). The circumstances which led to the introduction of this valuable vegetable into the system of British husbandry may be thus succinctly stated :— Queen Elisabeth, in 15S4, granted a patent "for discovering and planting new countries not possessed by Christians ;" and under this sanction some ships, principally equipped by Sir Walter Raleigh, sailed with him to Amenes. Thomas Harriett (afterwards known as mathematician), who accompanied the adventurous squadron, trans mitted to England the description of a plant called Opens/irk by the natives of that part of North America which the courtier-like gallantry of Raleigh hail named Virginia.
Harriett described the Orenawk al having the roots round, and "hanging together as if fixed on ropes, and good for food, either boiled or roasted." Gerardo, in his Herbal; a few years subsequently, dis tinguished the plant by a plate ; and not only confirmed tho assertion that it was an indigenous production of Virginia, whence he himself had obtained it, but supplied some curious details of its qualities, and of the various modes in which it may be dressed for the table. lie especially recommended it as the basis of " delicate conserves and resto rative eweetmenta," with the assurance that its flatulent effects may be infallibly corrected by having the roots "eaten sopped in wine ; " adding, "to give them the greater grace in eating, they should be belled with prunes." The honour of first cultivating the potato in Ireland, where it has so long constituted the principal food of the peaanntry, has been attributed to the grandfather of Sir Robert Southwell, president of the Royal Society of London, towards the close of the 17th century. Sir Robert's statement was to the effect that his ancestor had obtained soine roots from Sir Walter Raleigh.
Rut the potato had been known in Spain and Portugal at an earlier period, and it is from the latter country that wo most directly derive the name by which we know it : this is easily shown. Although the natives of North America called our plant opentswk, those of the south, more particularly the inhabitants of the mountains of Quito, called it papas, which the Spaniards corrupted into battata : this again their neighbours in Portugal softened into ba-ta-ta (da terra), to which po-testo is a very close approximation.
The potato was cultivated in Ireland long before its introduction into Lancashire, which was owing to a shipwreck, it is said, at North Meals, at the mouth of the Ribble, where the mode of propagation still maintains pro-eminence, and whence the culture of this important plant has gradually spread through every kartion of Great Britain.
It was not, however, until after a considerable time that it became palatable, productive, and farinaceous, or admitted into the course of field husbandry. It was limited to the garden for at least a century and a half after it was first planted at Youghal, and it was not until 1732 cultivated as a field crop in Scotland. It appears (from the General Report of Scotland ') that in the year 1725.6 the few potato plants then existing in gardens about Edinburgh were left in the same spot of ground from year to year, as recommended by Evelyn : a few tubers were perhaps removed for use in the autumn, and the parent plants were well covered with litter, to save them from the winter's frost.
Though the plant may be propagated both by its seed and tubers, practical management has confined the cultivation to the latter mode, except for the purpose of raising • now varieties or renewing old ones. Those who are curious about varieties (which are now innumerable), can almost indefinitely pursue their object ; for the seed of a species, the red apple for example, will sport, and this too without hybridising (that is, without the admixture of its seed with that of any other species, the produce of which would be hybrids), into numberless varieties of form and colour—round, flat, oblong, red, pink, black, white, mixed., and purple, of every shade and colour. These, whether hybrids or not, are reproduced through successive season, by the tubers alone, if they possess those qualities which render them desirable for continued cultivation, on account of peculiar adaptation to early or Into seasons, size, predominance of farina, &c." This mode of propagation by tubers either improves those qualities, or gradually developes objectionable properties. Some varieties are therefore permanently established, while the culture of others is either abandoned, or, if continued, it is known that those varieties revert in the course of a few generations to the nature of their parent kind, and therefore cease to constitute a variety.