Yet a hundredfold more important than the shad and his left-bower, the cucumber, is the vegetable that may be placed almost side by side with bread in the value it contributes to the sustenance of mankind--the potato, which the world owes to the western hemisphere, and whose introduction produced so great an economical revolution among the peoples of the earth. And were the potato itself lacking, the _Apios tuberosa_, or ground-nut, with its violet-scented blossoms--a tuber in use by the aborigines--would stand ready as a substitute, and yield innumerable varieties under cultivation. Although the early history of the potato is obscure and has been the subject of much discussion, the great botanist De Candolle states that its true home is Chili, where it grows wild; that before the discovery of America its cultivation was diffused from Chili to New Grenada; that it was introduced about the latter part of the sixteenth century into Virginia and North Carolina, and, finally, was imported into Europe between 1580 and 1585, first by the Spaniards and afterwards by the English at the time of Sir Walter Raleigh's voyages to Virginia. The first potato was planted on Sir Walter's estate in Cork, and employed for food in Ireland many years before it became familiar to England, the esculent still remaining the truffle of the Emerald Isle. Gerarde, long before the Lyonnaise or pomme soufflée was dreamed of, defines two varieties--the _Sisarum Peruvianum_, or skirret, of Peru, and the _Battata Virginiana_, or Virginian potato. In his "Great Herbal" the qualities of the "battata" are thus set forth: "The temperature and virtues be referred to the common Potatoes, being likewise a food, as also a meate for pleasure, equall in goodnesse and wholesomenesse unto the same, being either toasted in the embers, or boyled and eaten with oyle, vinegar and pepper, or dressed in any other way by the hand of some cunning in cookerie." The origin of the sweet potato is more doubtful, a number of authorities holding to its American and others to its Asiatic origin, though Brazil is usually credited as being the land of its genesis. During the old colony days of the eighteenth century catfish and waffle suppers were in great repute in the taverns on the picturesque Schuylkill near Philadelphia, these being still popular, though planked shad is more commonly called for. The turtle was a great favourite with our epicurean forefathers, who were accustomed frequently to hold turtle feasts or, as they were then termed, turtle frolics. Returning sea captains from the West Indies were expected to bring home a turtle for this purpose, together with a keg of limes, lime-juice being considered the best of all tart accompaniments for the punch-bowl. Of these feasts, with their accessories, a travelling clergyman named Burnaby gave this account in 1759: