Note 174 — XV. (continued 2)

During our stay at Shanghai we also made inquiries as to an alleged new species of potato, concerning which there have been current for years such contradictory accounts in the European and American journals, that the foreign community of Shanghai was beset with inquiries from all parts of the world, begging for more accurate information as to this newly discovered tuber, which promised to supply a much-needed substitute for the apparently effete, worn-out, disease-smitten potato of Peru. No one, however, could furnish us with the slightest information on the subject, and ultimately it became apparent that the rumours hitherto current were founded on an erroneous impression. It would seem, according to the opinion of Mr. Fortune, that the rumour first arose from mistaking for a new sort of potato, the Calladium esculentum, which is quite commonly exposed for sale in the streets of Shanghai, and the small tubers of which, both in flavour and external appearance, resemble those of the potato, when, without taking the slightest further trouble to inquire into the matter, the pretended new discovery, fraught with such important results for the poorer classes, was duly trumpeted to the entire world. In no part of China hitherto accessible was there at the time of our visit any other description of potato in use than the common Peruvian. Officers of the English and American navies, who at the time of the first Peace of Tien-Tsin were eating potatoes in the Gulf of Petcheli, assured us that they were precisely identical with those that have so long been acclimatized in Europe. Of edible tubers there are at Shanghai, besides potatoes, the yam (Dioscorea sp.) and the Yucca (Jatropha sp.).