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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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potato
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Native to South America, and cultivated by the *Incas, the potato was brought to Spain in the second half of the 16C. It was some while before it changed from an expensive curiosity (with the supposed power of curing impotence) to a basic food, and the change seems to have come first in Ireland, where by the end of the 17C it was a major crop. (It had possibly been first planted there on the estates of Walter *Raleigh.) The potato soon became the basic food of the Irish peasant. The spread of the crop was encouraged by hardship and warfare; the potato yields far more food from the same area of ground than a grain crop, can be harvested when convenient, and is less likely to be destroyed by enemy or storm. But the dangers of total reliance on it were also first seen in Ireland, in the *Great Famine.
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