CHAPTER XIII.
THE STORY OF A TUBER.
The planting of a tuber by Clusius, in 1588, in the Botanical Gardens at Vienna, is often referred to as the introduction of the potato into Europe. As a matter of fact, however, this was not the first planting, for the Spaniards brought the real potato—Solanum tuberosum—home to Spain about 1580. From Spain it extended to Italy, and became at once a common article of food there. From Spain it also extended to Belgium, and was cultivated there; and it was from a Belgian that Clusius got the roots which he planted at Vienna in 1588.
Then, again, it has been said that Christopher Columbus was the first European who ever tasted a potato, and that was in 1492, when he reached Cuba. From Cuba he brought samples back with him to Genoa. This would make our history one hundred years older, only it so happens that the Solanum tuberosum is not a native of these parts, and could not have been at Cuba when Columbus was there. What he tasted and brought home was the Convolvulus batatas, or sweet potato, a very different article, although it gave its name, 'batatas,' to our tuber in the modified form of 'potato.'
The real potato is a native of Chili, and it has been proved to the satisfaction of naturalists that it did not exist in North America before the arrival of Europeans. How, then, could Sir John Hawkins bring it from Santa-Fé in 1565, or Sir Walter Raleigh from Virginia in 1584? Well, in the first place, it was the sweet potato that Sir John brought; and in the second place, before Sir Walter went to Virginia, the Spaniards had brought there the real potato on returning from some of their South American expeditions. In 1580 they sent it home, and there is evidence that by 1580 the Solanum tuberosum had been planted in North America. By the time Raleigh brought it to England, however, it was already a familiar root in Italy.
But did he bring it? There are some who say that it was Sir Francis Drake who brought the roots and presented them to Sir Walter Raleigh, who planted them on his estate near Cork in the year 1594. M'Culloch, however, says that 1610 was the year of the introduction into Ireland, and other writers say that Raleigh knew so little of the virtues of the plant he was naturalizing that he caused the apples, not the tubers, to be cooked and served upon his own table. Buckle, however, says that the common, or Virginian, potato was introduced by Raleigh in 1586, and Lyte, who wrote in that year, does not mention the plant; but Gerarde, who published the first edition of his Herbal in 1597, gave a portrait of himself with a potato in his hand.
Here, then, we have some negative certainties and some positive uncertainties. Columbus did not take the real potato to Genoa in 1492; Hawkins did not bring it to England in 1565. The Spaniards did take it to Spain in or about 1580; but whether Raleigh was the first to bring it to Britain, and in what year, remains open to doubt.
During the whole of the seventeenth century the potato was quite a rarity in this country, and up to 1684 was cultivated only in the gardens of the gentry. In Scotland it does not seem to have been grown at all, even in gardens, before 1728. Phillips, in the History of Cultivated Vegetables, says that in 1619 the price in England was one shilling a pound. He further says that great prejudices existed against it, that it was alleged to be poisonous, and that in Burgundy the cultivation of it was prohibited.
These early prejudices against the potato are explainable on the supposition that the people did not know how to cook it, and possibly ate it raw, in which state it is certainly unwholesome, if not actually poisonous. Then, again, it belongs to a family of ill-repute, the Solanacæ, of which the deadly nightshade and the mandrake are members, as well as more honoured specimens like the tomato, tobacco, datura, and cayenne-pepper plants. The mandrake, of course, was the subject of ancient dislike, and perhaps it was natural for our superstitious progenitors to regard with suspicion any relative of that lugubrious root.
Even the tempting appearance of the tomato did not suffice to win favour for it when first introduced into Europe, until somebody discovered that, although undoubtedly sent by the infidels to poison the Christians, the Bon Dieu had interfered, and transformed it into an agreeable and wholesome fruit.