. Cyclopedia of farm crops. Farm produce; Agriculture. Fig. 743. Potato, to show manner of growth. Thomas Herriot, who was a member of the expe- dition sent to America by Sir Walter Raleigh. The Virginian colonists probably secured potatoes from the Spanish, and they soon proved a valuable acquisition. It is a common opinion that the aborigines of Virginia cultivated the potato at the time of the. PhyUotaxy of po- tato. Tlie in- serted taeks sliow tlie lin'it- tion of tlie buds. discovery. W. R. Gerard asserts, however ("Scien- tific American," September 15, 1906), that the openauk o
. Cyclopedia of farm crops. Farm produce; Agriculture. Fig. 743. Potato, to show manner of growth. Thomas Herriot, who was a member of the expe- dition sent to America by Sir Walter Raleigh. The Virginian colonists probably secured potatoes from the Spanish, and they soon proved a valuable acquisition. It is a common opinion that the aborigines of Virginia cultivated the potato at the time of the. PhyUotaxy of po- tato. Tlie in- serted taeks sliow tlie lin'it- tion of tlie buds. discovery. W. R. Gerard asserts, however ("Scien- tific American," September 15, 1906), that the openauk of Thomas Herriot (a product much quoted or discussed in the later writings on the potato), supposed to have been the potato, is really the ground-nut, Apios tuberosa. He contends that the potato was secured by Raleigh's expedition, under his cousin Sir Richard Grenville, on the return voyage, from a Spanish ship hailing from St. Domingo and cap- tured in mid-ocean. The potato was cultivated in Ireland long before it was known in England. Probably the potato was served as an exotic rarity at a Harvard installation dinner in 1707 ; but the tuber was not brought into cultivation in New England till the arrival of the Presbyterian immigrants from Ire- land in 1718. The potato of Shake- speare was what we now know as the sweet-potato, which derived its name from the aboriginal word botnta or batata; this word or its derivative was later applied to our common or Irish potato. The abo- riginal word is still preserved to us in the Latin name of the sweet- potato, Ipomwa (or Convolvulus) Batatas. Gerarde's Herball, published in 1597, describes the potato, and the edition published in 1636 con- tains a woodcut of it. Many of the other works of like nature contain descriptions of it. In 1663, the RoJ-al Society of England tried to popularize the plant, especially in Ireland. So late as 1699 Evelyn barely mentioned the potato, and in 1719 London and Wise did not consider the plant worthy o
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