The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-01-17
CENTENNIAL OF THE POTATO
How The Dinner Table Esculent Was Dis
COW red Many Years Ago.

How the Dinner Table Esculent Was Dis
covered Many Years Ago.
From the London News.
CenItannial celebrations being one of
our modern fashions, why should the
approaching tercenitenary of the intno-
duction of that popular and valuable
article of food. the potato, go unhon-
oTed? Mr.. Krichauff, the chairman OF
the agricultural bureau of South Aus
tralia, has directed attention to uhe
fact that 1t was I'm the year 1596-just
upon three centuries ago-fhat the
great English boitanist, Gerard. first
planted potaboes i'm his garden at Hol-
born, pleasant senliruTal suburb in
those days. 1t is believed that he OBJ
tanned tubers or seeds from Sir Walter
Raleigh, who had then lately brought
from South America samples of that
hitherto unknown vegetable, and plant
ed them ON his estate at Youghal, near
Cork. Gerard, however, recommended
Them only as a delicate dish, and Ii is
recorded that the tubers were some
times roasted and stepped in sack-tf7t
g, sherry and sugar-or bal0en w.ith
marrow and spices, and even preserved
and cand3ed. Shakespeare twice men,
tlons pcItaltoes-in THE Merry Wives of
Windsor and in "Troilus and Cressi-
da'-but ne seems to have regarded
enem as curiosity of the mateEda med
fca rather uham as an article of food.
W Is curious NOW 10 note how slowly
the pntato made ITS way 10 the tables
OF either 'dhe rich or poor. In a house
keeping book kert by Anne Of Den
mark, wife of King James l., an entry
has been found of the purchase of a
small quantity of POTATOES. from which
we learn that the price was then two
s1mGng5 a pound.
Soon after the restoration che govern
ment tried ito push the cultivation with
the assistance of the Royal society, but
progf ses was slow. In English books
OF gardening ait The thine of George ].
potatoes are not even mentioned, and
as late as the year 1884 they were chief
ly found in the gardens of noblemen
and Cther rich msl. Soon utter this,
however. the cultivation began TO make
rapid strides, with good effeats upon
the health of the people. who, till then.
Mved chiefly ON sailed meat and coarse
bread varied by Elttle IN che way of
garden vegetables. Thus sn the year
1896 1,70O acres of POTATOES were planted
in the county of Essex alone.
William COrbeIth, as Will be remem
bered, was a persistent opponent of the
new food. In his English Gardener,
published in 1888, he denounced the sub
stitutiOn of the potato for bread urg-
ing that 1t had been established by
evidence taken before committees or
the mouse of commons that Ito raise po-
tatoes for the purpose would be thing
iiilSti9tNOio 10 lIle IhdlVtn. IN SCO1-
land few plants could be found in 1925
chiefly i'm gardens around Edinburgh.
After 1760 they began 20 be more gen.
orally planted. Frederick the Great
was more successful in inducing the
Pomeranhan cultivaltors 20 take 10 po-
ltato growing than his father had been.
He had recourse no his Soldiery, who
had to force the farmers to PLANT them;
but Mr. Krichauff thinks that If it had
not been for the famine i'm Germany in
1771-2 the merits of the potato would
not have been so generally acknowl
edged.
France was decidedly behind her
neighbors, and even to this day the
quantity of POTATOES consumed in
France, although very large, is consid-
euably less than with us. For a popu-
lar prejudice against them, grounded
on "a suspicion that they We're unwhole
some. The potato, nevertheless, was
placed on the royal table in France as
early as 1916, but 1T was Parmentier, an
apothecary, who more than a century
and a half later, first impressed its val
ue upon his counttrymen. Parmentier
showed his POTATOES, which were then
evidently regarded i'm France aus a nov
city, to Louis XVI, who gave him up
ward of 100 acres of land for expert
mental cultivation. The pretty purple
and orange POTATO blossom, looking like
am enlarged variety of flowers of the
belladonna or deadly nightshade-to
which terrible plant, oddly enough, lt
is botanically a1lied-became a FASH
ionable adomment. The king wore it
in mis- buttonhole; Queen Marie An,toin
cite tw-ined Ut in her beautiful hair, and
princes, dukes and high funo51Onaries
fell in love with the potato flower. All
Taris talked Harmemtier aEI1 The new
earth apples" (pCmmes-de-t terTe), as
they called them. The king said to the
cultivator: France Will thamk you one
day, for you have found food for the
poor" And France" adds Mr. Krf-
ohauff, has not forgotten Parmentier.
for l saw myself, in 1882, potatoes
growing on his grave in the grand Gem
etery of Pere a Chaise, and l was as
sured that they were planted there ev
cry year so that his services might
never be forgotten by Frenchmen."