The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1906-04-14
THE POTATO FAMILY.

! When the first human inhabitants
of this country, of time long before
the cliff dwellers and the mound bull
ders, were driven from the fertile
plains of the great west by the ever
swarming hordes who poured over
from Asia by way of the Bering
straits, and eventually found their way
to the Southern continent, they found
there, growing in great luxuriance,
the Potato family. Like the corn
and tobacco families, and the turkey
family, the Potato is truly American /;
and also like the corn and turkey fami-
lies, the name given to it by the first
white settlers is misleading, as there
is no such thing as an Irish" Potato.
When Christopher Columbus re-
turned to Spain from his first voyage
of discovery to the new world, he
presented to his sovereigns an offer
ing of sweet potatoes, which he call
ed "pattattas, the nearest he could
come to the pronunciation of the In
dian name.
When Sir Walter Raleigh came
over, he took back to his estates in
Ireland, seed of the potato and tobac-
CO; but the potato he took back was
not the sweet patato, but one white
in color, round or oblong in shape,
and, not sweet to the taste. The
white potato grew we'll in its new
home in Ireland, and soon came to be
the chief article OF diet of the Irish
people.
In 1918, large colony of North
Ireland people, mostly of Scotch an
cestors, came over to this country Ito
worship God as their consciences
might dictate" and settled in a part
OF what is now Massachusetts. They
brought with them some seed pota-
toes, and the following spring planted
the seed. Before the crop was ma
tured, however, they were compelled
by some circumstance, probably In-
dian raids, to abandon their homes,
and flee south toward New York. In
the autumn of that same year, some
Huguenots occupied their former
homes, and having heard of the Irish
plant called the potato they assumed
that what they found there was that
vegetable But the plants were with
cred, and all they could fnd were
some little balls on the top of the
dead plants. They tried by every
imaginable manner Of cooking to eat
these balls, but found they were good
for nothing. That winter they all but
starved. In the spring however they
began blowing the fields of the for
mer inhabitants, and 10 there was
thrown out Of the ground an sbun-
dance of fine potatoes, on which they
lived until new crops were matured.
Being quite sure these potatoes were
brought to this country by the Irish
colony, and never having heard of
them elsewhere, the Huguenots,
called them Irish potatoes, aname
which has stayed with them to this
day.
Potatoes have never been improved
much since Columbus and Sir Walter
Raleigh found them growing with
the Indians of the West Indies they
were quite as large then as now, and
the only appreciable difference is that
we, of later time, have developed
certain varieties, by growing them for
long periods Of time under certain
fixed conditions, and in certain soils.
In this way we have developed early
and late varieties, round and oblong
shapes, red and white and yellow
kinds, the difference in color being
brought about by the amount OF iron
in the soil in which they are grown.
Potatoes are mostly starch, with
very small quantities of ash or miner
al matter, and still smaller quantities
of albumen or proteids. They are dis
tinctly fattening food for either man
or beast.-/oAn Allen Hayns6y in
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