Potato
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Potato. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a well known plant of the nightshade family. It is a native of Chile and Peru. A wild variety is found as far northward as the mountains of Colorado. The potato was cultivated quite generally by the American Indians before the discovery of America. It was carried to Spain from Peru early in the sixteenth century. Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have brought specimens from Virginia in 1585. For a century or so the potato was cultivated in European gardens as a curiosity, and was regarded by scientists as of mere botanic interest. It became a field crop first in Ireland. In 1772 Frederick the Great introduced the culture in Prussia. One-eighth of the arable land of that country is now devoted to raising potatoes. Potatoes are so important a crop in Ireland that they are jocularly called "Irish apricots," or "Munster plums." The potato is the most popular of all vegetables. The name was first and properly applied to the sweet potato or native batata. It is so used in the South to this day, the common potato being known by way of distinction as the Irish potato; but the error has been passed over, and it is too late to save the potato from going under a stolen name. Being native of the Andes, it has been called, poetically enough, "the apple of Peru." The potato is related closely to the tomato, ground cherry , and egg-plant. It is allied to tobacco. The stalk, leaves, blossom, and fruit of the potato and of the tomato vine are quite alike. By fruit we mean, of course, the green "potato ball" that succeeds the blossom late in autumn. A cross section of a potato ball shows that it resembles a tomato very closely in shape and in the arrangement of the cells and seeds. The fruit of the potato plant is unfit for food. The edible portion is the swollen starchy end or tuber of an underground stem. The potatoes do not grow on roots, but terminate underground stems. Roots branch, but do not have buds. The eyes of a potato are buds. They all point upward or away from the center of the plant and are most numerous at the extreme end of the stem or tuber. When kept from frost over winter the eyes or buds sprout and produce new plants. The tomato-like seeds in the potato balls are sometimes planted by way of experiment. They are like apple seeds in that they do not come true or produce potatoes like those grown on the parent vine. In this way new varieties may be developed. The potato contains seventy-eight per cent of water and eighteen per cent of starch. As an article of diet it is deficient in nitrogen and fat. It should be supplemented by such articles of food as oatmeal, butter, gravy, eggs, beans, and meat. Potatoes contain a trifling amount of an alkaloid poison akin to the nicotine of tobacco. It resides chiefly in the skin. It escapes during boiling and gives the characteristic odor of boiling potatoes. As stock food potatoes belong to the same general class as corn and other starchy foods. A bushel of potatoes furnishes somewhat over one-fifth as much food as a bushel of corn. It is profitable, therefore, to sell potatoes at twenty-five cents and buy corn at one dollar per bushel. Professor Henry of the Wisconsin Station claims that four and a half pounds of boiled potatoes are equal to a pound of cornmeal in feeding value for hogs. To the animal, potatoes may be fed raw, but they should be sliced to prevent choking, and should be combined with food having a high per cent of nitrogen, as clover or alfalfa. Gardeners have taken pains to improve the potato. The large, mealy tuber now placed on the table is different from the small, watery potato first made known to Europeans. The world's potato crop is dependent on weather and soil conditions. The United States has so great a diversity of soil and climate that a fair crop is to be expected somewhere between Maine and California. It has happened that the entire potato crop of a country like Ireland has rotted in the ground by reason of a wet autumn. The following statistics are to be regarded therefore with caution, as they do not represent the yield of any one year, nor are they complete. They were given out by the United States Department of Agriculture for the potato crop of 1907: Country. Bushels. United States 297,942,000 Canada 72,236,000 Mexico 469,000 Newfoundland 1,350,000 Chile 6,532,000 Austria-Hungary 731,658,000 Belgium 88,192,000 Denmark 24,005,000 Finland 20,432,000 France 404,181,000 Germany 1,673,246,000 Italy: 29,000,000 Malta 793,000 Netherlands 94,401,000 Norway 16,956,000 Roumania 3,860,000 Russia, European 1,034,108,000 Servia 876,000 Spain 84,000,000 Sweden 52,270,000 Great Britain 111,159,000 Ireland 83,869,000 Japan 20,244,000 Russia, Asiatic 17,076,000 Algeria 1,803,000 Cape of Good Hope 2,000,000 Natal 444,000 Australasia 22,188,000 Grand Total 4,409,793,000 No statistics are available for Switzerland, Portugal, Argentina, Transvaal, Egypt, and some other potato-growing countries. According to the same authority the American potato crop for 1908 was: State. Bushels. Maine 26,100,000 New Hampshire 1,900,000 Vermont 1,971,000 Massachusetts 3,040,000 Rhode Island 900,000 Connecticut 2,720,000 New York 34,850,000 New Jersey 5,256,000 Pennsylvania 19,944,000 Delaware 656,000 Maryland 2,464,000 Virginia 5,016,000 West Virginia 2,856,000 North Carolina 1,975,000 South Carolina 729,000 Georgia 780,000 Florida 415,000 Ohio 13,090,000 Indiana 5,130,000 Illinois 11,076,000 Michigan 23,400,000 Wisconsin 20,160,000 Minnesota 11,020,000 Iowa 11,280,000 Missouri 6,800,000 North Dakota 2,550,000 South Dakota 4,050,000 Nebraska 7,098,000 Kansas 6,880,000 Kentucky 2,356,000 Tennessee 2,240,000 Alabama 1,275,000 Mississippi 728,000 Louisiana 1,066,000 Texas 3,550,000 Oklahoma 2,106,000 Arkansas 2,460,000 Montana 2,760,000 Wyoming 948,000 Colorado 7,000,000 New Mexico 100,000 Utah 1,920,000 Nevada 360,000 Idaho 1,950,000 Washington 4,560,000 Oregon 4,257,000 California 5,243,000 United States 278,985,000 See Alcohol ; Starch ; Burbank ; Tomato
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
or POTATOE, Solanum tuberosum, a well-known plant, the tubers (dilated branches) of which are eaten. It is a native of Chile and Peru. Some think that it was first brought to Spain from the mountains near Quito early in the 16th century. Thence it spread to Italy and Austria. Sir Walter Raleigh is supposed to have taken it to England in July, 1586. For the next century and a half they were regarded as garden plants only. They gradually made way to the important position which they now occupy in agriculture.