Evening star., 1943-04-18
Potato Chronicle

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fore in their experience, are potato
conscious in a great big way. A
shortage of the familiar tubers
has served to create new and un-
paralleled appreciation Of them.
Thus, it happens that a travelling
Washingtonian returns home from a
trip to New York, not with ordinary
gifts for his family-such common
place things as jewels and rare per-
fumes-but with a suitcase filled
with spuds purchased in an obscure
East Side grocery. He is greeted with
cheers by wife and children, who
are hungry for their accustomed
starches. His neighbors refer to
him as the fortunate Mr.. So-andSo,
and his mother-in- does him the
compliment of regarding him as "a
much better provider" than she pre-
viously had supposed.
Some similar reception possibly
rewarded the original discoverer OF
the potato long centuries ago. The
celebrated French historian, Al
phonse de Candolle, in his classic
work on cultivated plants, refers to
the Solanum tuberosum as a native
of the southern half of the Western
Hemisphere. "It is proved beyond a
doubt" he declares, that at the
time of the discovery of America the
cultivation of the potato was prac-
ticed with every appearance of
ancient usage in the temperate re-
gions extending from Chile to New
Granada at attitudes varying with
the latitude" According to the same
authority. Banks and Dunal were
right to insist upon the fact that the
potato was first introduced Ito Eu-
rope) by the Spaniard, since for a
long time the credit was generally
given to Sir Walter Raleigh, who was
the second introducer, and even to
other Englishmen, who had intro
duced, not the potato, but the batata
(sweet potato), which is more or less
confoEnded with it,"
De Candolle then cites particularly
the botanist, De l'Ecluse, who, he
explains, published the first good
description and illustration of the
potato, under the significant name
Of Papas peruanorum. The
plants described by De l'Ecluse were
sent to him in 1888 by Philippe de
Sivry, Seigneur of Waldheim and
Governor of Mons, who had received
them from some one in attendance
on the papal legate in Belgium. De
lEcluse adds that the species had
been introduced into Italy from Spain
or America, and he wonders that,
although the plant had become so
common in Italy that it was eaten
like a turnip and given to the pigs,
the learned men of the University of
Padua only became acquainted with
it by means of the tuber which he
sent them from Germany"
But De Candolle is still more con-
cerned with the mystery of where
the potato first developed in the New
World I'm order to know from what
| part of that vast continent it was
brought" he insists, "it is necessary
to know If the plant is found wild
there and in what localities. When
all the evidence available to him has
been studied, he reaches the conclu-
sion that: "The potato is wild in
Chile, in a form which is still seen
in our cultivated plants; its cultiva-
ton was diffused before the discovery
of America from Chile to New
Granada; it was introduced, prob
ably in the latter half of the six
teenth century, into that part of the
United States now known as Vir-
| ginia and North Carolina; and it
was imported into Europe between
1880 and 1885, first by the Spaniards
and afterward by the English at the
time of Raleigh's voyages to
Virginia"
Thomas Jefferson, it might be
added, was interested in the produc-
ton of more and better potatoes in
the neighborhood Of the Capital OF
the United States. More than a few
residents Of that city and its hinter-
land could wish he were back again
to like purpose.