The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-05-11
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS


 was going up in price, and before I knew it got lost in the mystic word maze about the various meanings of papa" the Spanish equivalent of potato.
 Knowing that the white potato came to us through the Spaniards. I was curious to know how it had been christened Irish potato" looked long for the answer, and then 1t came over me at once that 1t was because the inhabitants of the Emerald Isle were the first to make it their chief food starle.
 I connected up the word papa" with the pope Of Rome, confessing that some how as Protestant it brought me closer to him by humanizing what before had been to me purely ecclesiastical title. Now, it appears that one could easily establish the fact that the reason the United States was long ruled by the Irish was brought about by the white good thesis and therefore commend it to some college man in search of sub ject.
 
 History is curious thing, if one takes a long glance at it. The white potato was most probably introduced into Flu rope from the region of Quito by the Spaniards, about the middle of the Six teenth Century When they first came in contact with it the tubers were being cul- tivated by the natives. know that there is some question as to whether the Span- iards are to be credited with it's introduc- tion into England. some claim that it was through Drake, but Banks says the Englishman's was the sweet and not the white variety
 In any event, we are told by Hum- boldt that at the discovery of America, the plant was cultivated in all the tenn perate parts of the continent from Chile to Colombia, but not in Mexico. The potato is a native of the Andes. This l much seems certain, and also that if any were transported from Virginia to Eng land in the latter end of the Sixteenth Century they were probably derived by the settlers through the Spanards
 
 History moves in a circle, as can be seen by the story of the potato. First the Spaniards get hold of it and it gets a footing in Spain and in southern Eu- rope; then in Virginia, and later in Eng | land; but it was left to the Irish to turn | it into the chief dietary of a nation, and thereby hangs as sad a tale as can be found in the history of any people, for l in the failure of the crop the misery of the Irish was laid.
 Even as late the opening of the Seventeenth Century the potato seems to I have been looked upon as curiosity, and ! it was not until the latter part of the | Eighteenth Century that its cultivation l was begun on any great scale, although l the Royal Society of London had recom- mended it in 1863 as a possible safeguard l against famine among the Irish peas | antry. Owing to the failure of grain crops in 1772 the potato soon commenced to grow in popularity as a food-plant. but even as late as 1T71 only two varieties, one white and one red, were listed. l
 1 potato into Ireland in 1s10 it's history has been rooted deep in the tuber. It was at first the means of greatly increasing it's population. When Petty wrote early in Charles ITS resign, this demoralizing esculent" was already the national food. l Be it remembered that the Elizabethan wars were most injurious to industry, for | Iy,op wi fc reap; but it was discovered that the labor of one man could plant potatoes enough to feed forty.
 Even then. as now, man, in spite of his many triumphs in the fields of agFi- culture and manufactory had not learned a way to preserve potatoes. It seems
 strange to read that today in America we are not much better able to preserve the crop than were the people in the case
 of Ireland nearly two centuries ago. have just read a newspaper article ir (which "Girard," in the Philadelphia
 Press, asserts that Pennsylvania lost ths past year $1o0.OO0oOo by neglecting ta
 care for the potatoes it raised.
 It therefore seems strangely up-to-datt to read that there was a similar negiec
 in Ireland during the decade from 17S
 to 174o. Knowing that potatoes could no be kept long, there was no attempt mad'
 to do so they were left in the ground and dug required. and what wa
 known as the meal months June, Jul, and August, always brought great hard ships. Between 1S3l-1S42 there were si, seasons of dearth. or near-famines. Bea in mind that the population had growl
 from 2,s45,s32 in 17s5 to o,s56.5s4 in 1908 and that in lS45 it had swelled to &. 7 061.
 They married and were given in mar
 riage. The danger increased as the ever
 growing population pressed ever harde
 than the available land was able to beal
 Wise men foresaw the deluge; but peopl who were already half starved ever,
 summer did not think their case coul' we'll be worse. Stark famine was abou to grip eight millions of people. for tn greater part depended upon the potat for food There was no margin, an'
 we read that when the "precarious eS otic" failed, for the potato was an alien
 starvation was the result.
 effort was supplemented by private aid
 and that relief works were started, giv , ing employment to three-Quarters of I million people. representing a family az