ile after their
introduction the Potato tubers were grown only by men of fortune as
a delicacy; and the general cultivation of this vegetable was strongly
opposed by the public, [443] chiefly by the Puritans, because no
mention of it could be found in the Bible.

Also in France great opposition was offered to the recognised use of
Potatoes: and it is said that Louis the Fifteenth, in order to bring
the plant into favour, wore a bunch of its flowers in the button hole
of his coat on a high festival. Later on during the Revolution quite a
mania prevailed for Potatoes. Crowds perambulated the streets of
Paris shouting for "la liberte, et des Batatas"; and when Louis the
Sixteenth had been dethroned the gardens of the Tuileries were
planted with Potatoes. Cobbett, in this country, exclaimed virulently
against the tuber as "hogs' food," and hated it as fiercely as he hated
tea. The stalks, leaves, and green berries of the plant share the
narcotic and poisonous attributes of the nightshades to which it
belongs; and the part which we eat, though often thought to be a
root, is really only an underground stem, which has not been acted
on by light so as to develop any poisonous tendencies, and in which
starch is stored up for the future use of the plant.

The stalks, leaves, and unripe fruit yield an active principle
apparently very powerful, which has not yet been fully investigated.
There are two sorts of tubers, the red and the white. A roasted
Potato takes two hours to digest; a boiled one three hours and a half.
"After the Potato," says an old proverb, "cheese."

Chemically the Potato contains citric acid, like that of the lemon,
which is admirable against scurvy: also potash, which is equally
antiscorbutic, and phosphoric acid, yielding phosphorus in a
quantity less only than that afforded by the apple, and by wheat. It is
of the first importance that the potash salts should be retained by the
potato during cooking: and the [444] tubers should therefore be
steamed with their coats on; else if peeled, and then steamed, they
lose respectively seven and five per cent. of potash, and phosphoric
acid.

If boiled after peeling they lose as much as thirty-three per cent. of
potash, and twenty-three per cent. of phosphoric acid. "The roots,"
says Gerard, "were forbidden in Burgundy, for that they were
persuaded the too frequent use of them causeth the leprosie."
Nevertheless it is now believed that the Potato has had much to d