more than three-and-a-half years!

POTATOES.

The common English or Irish potato (_Solanum tuberosum_), so
extensively cultivated throughout most of the temperate countries of
the civilised globe, contributing as it does to the necessities of a
large portion of the human race, as well as to the nourishment and
fattening of stock, is regarded as of but little less importance in
our national economy than wheat or other grain. It has been found in
an indigenous state in Chili, on the mountains near Valparaiso and
Mendoza; also near Monte Video, Lima, Quito, as well as in Santa Fe de
Bogota, and more recently in Mexico, on the flanks of Orizaba.

The history of this plant, in connection with that of the sweet
potato, is involved in obscurity, as the accounts of their
introduction into Europe are somewhat conflicting, and often they
appear to be confounded with one another. The common kind was
doubtless introduced into Spain in the early part of the sixteenth
century, from the neighbourhood of Quito, where, as well as in all
Spanish countries, the tubers are known as papas. The first published
account of it we find on record is in "_La Cronica del Peru_," by
Pedro de Cieca, printed at Seville, in 1553, in which it is described
and illustrated by an engraving. From Spain it appears to have found
its way into Italy, where it assumed the same name as the truffle. It
was received by Clusius, at Vienna, in 1598, in whose time it spread
rapidly in the South of Europe, and even into Germany. It is said to
have found its way to England by a different route, having been
brought from Virginia by Raleigh colonists, in 1586, which would seem
improbable, as it was unknown in North America at that time, either
wild or cultivated; and besides, Gough, in his edition of Camden's
"Britannia," says it was first planted by Sir Walter Raleigh, on his
estate at Youghal, near Cork, and that it was cultivated in Ireland
before its value was known in England. Gerarde, in his "Herbal,"
published in 1597, gives a figure of this plant, under the name of
_Batata Virginiana_, to distinguish it from the _Batata edulis_, and
recommends the root to be eaten as a "delicate dish," but not as a
common food. "The sweet potato," says Sir Joseph Banks, "was used in
England as a delicacy, long before the introduction of our potatoes.
It was imported in considerable quantities from Spain and the
Canaries, and was supposed to possess the power of restoring deca