ltivated 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
_Solanacae_, 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.

One meets with two references to the potato in Shakespeare, and these
are said to be the earliest notices of it in English literature. Thus in
Troilus and Cressida: 'The devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potato
finger, tickles these together!' In the Merry Wives, Falstaff says: 'Let
the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the time of Green Sleeves; hail
kissing-comfits, and snow Eringoes.'

There are several references in the early dramatists, which the curious
reader may find collected in a note in Steevens's Shakespeare, but which
hardly serve our purpose. There is one reference, however, by Waller,
which is interesting:

'With candy'd plantains and the juicy pine,
On choicest melons and sweet grapes they dine,
And with potatoes fat their wanton kine,'

because it seems to be the case that, prior to 1588, the Italian
peasants used the potato as food for their pigs as well as for
themselves.

We are constrained, however, to conclude that Shakespeare and the old
dramatists referred to the sweet potato, sometimes called the Spanish
potato. 'Eringoes,' mentioned by Falstaff, were candied roots.