Mountain Home maverick. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1906-1911, 1906-09-27

OSSCS, dtll 4DAlA DdA AAiC ~
lief becoming prevalent that it
caused leprosy and fever, it under
went an ordeal of persecution from
which il did not recover until
three-quarters OF a century after
ward.
1t is positively known that the
potato found its way into Ireland in
the latter part of 1885 or the be-
ginning OF 1886, and all authors,
with scarcely an exception, who
have written on the subject, as
cribe its introduction in that
country to some of the colonists
who were sent to Virginia by Sir
Walter Raleigh in the middle of
1885, and who, becoming discour-
aged, returned horne in the fleet of
Sir Francis Drake in the fall of 1896
Dominique Chabr ee, a Genevese
botanist Who wrote in 1866, tells
US that the potato was known to
the natives of Virginiae insula
(Roanoke Island) by the name of
Openauk, a statement repeated by
Sir Joseph Banks (lS05), and deem
ed worthy of credence by de Can
dole (1883). Let US see what basis
there is tor the belief, as we'll as
for the statement that has passed
unchallenged for three centuries,
that the potato was found in Gull
tivation among the Indians of Vir-
ignia. Thomas Harriet 1.-THE sur
veyor and historian of Raleigh's
first colony, of 1889, in his
''Briefe and True Report of the
New Found Land of Virginia
written in 1889, gives the native
names of and describes sixteen
vegetable productions which were
used as food by the Renape Indians
of Roanoke Island, and of which
six were subterranean.
Openauk plural of open) the
general Algonkian name with
lect) for the tubers of the legumi-
nous plant Apios tuberosa, popular
ly called wild potato, Indian
potato, 'ground-nut, potato
pea, ETC., and, by the French of
Canada, ''pomme de terre. " Open
is from pen, meaning root in
composition, and vocalic prefix
which has lost it's meaning, if it
ever had any. The tubers, white,
and like small artichokes, are
fsrinaceous and tender and ve1 y
good boiled or roasted. They are
extensively employed by the In
dams as food wherever the plant
grows, that is to say, from New
Brunswick (British America) TO
Florida, and west to Minnesota,
Kansas and Louisiana. 1t was the
tubers of this ely-distributed
leguminous plant VERY we'll de-
scribed by Hariot) thet were mis-
taken by Chabree, Banks, and De
Candolle for those of the Solanum,
with which, as may be seen, the
Indians, as might be expected, were
unacquainted. How, then, did the
belief originate that the potato was
introduced into Ireland from Vir-
ginia? That is question that can
be easily answered. Sir Richard
Grenville, acting for his cousin, Sir
Walter Raleigh, sailed from Ply
mouth April 9, 1885, with fleet of
seven ships carrying 1913 emigrants
for founding colony in Virginia.
Reaching the coast of North Caro-
lima (then Virginia) late in June,
he landed his charges, and, after
seeing them safely established or
Roanoke Island, set sail for England.
On his way thither, somewhere in
mid-ocean, he fell in with a 800
/ ton Spanish ship, homeward bound
/ from ST. Domingo, which attacked
him, but was soon overpowered ano
/ captured and taken as a prize to
/ Plymouth. 1t was undoubtedly
from the cargo of this ship, which
is said to have been richly lader
with products of the New World,
that came the potatoes which Ra-
leigh sent to the manager of his
estates at Youghal, County of Cork,
Ireland. The culture, begun here
on a small scale, gradually extend
ed, and the ''spud' las the Irish
call it) became an important articl,
of food in Ireland long before i
was even known in England
From Ireland the culture was in
troduced into Lancaster, where
by the end of the seventeenth cen
fury, it had assumed large proper
tions. At the beginning of tn,
eighteenth century the tuber be
came an article of export from
Ireland and Lancaster to Jamaic;
and the British colonies of Nortl
America, where, from its place o
shipment, it received the name o