1493_ Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Charles C. Mann [260]
12 Wachos: Author’s interviews and e-mail, Erickson and Denevan; Wilson et al. 2002; Sánchez Farfan 1983:167–69; Bruhns 1981. Wacho and wachu are the Quechua and Aymara terms; they are known in Spanish as surcos.
13 Farming methods: Author’s visits; Gade 1975:35–51, 207–10; Rowe 1946:210–16.
14 Potato variety: Brush et al. 1995; Zimmerer 1998 (“United States,” 451). The potato center landrace database is at singer.cgiar.org/index.jsp.
15 Potato genetics: Jacobs et al. 2008 (“to accept”); Spooner and Salas 2006:9–23 (overview); Huamán and Spooner 2002 (four species); Spooner and Hijmans 2001 (eight groups); Hawkes 1990. Spooner and Hijmans basically relabeled Hawkes’s taxonomy, which described all but one of the cultivars as separate species.
16 Path of potato to Europe: Reader 2009:81–93; Hawkes and Francisco-Ortega 1993 (Canary Islands); Salaman 1985:69–100 (conquistador’s revulsion, 69); Laufer 1938:40–62 passim; Roze 1898 (Bauhin, 85–88).
17 Drake: Salaman (1985:144–58), Roze (1898:63–64, 70–74), and, to a lesser extent, McNeill (1999), credit the story. Drake did pick up some potatoes in the Pacific in 1577 (Salaman 1985:147).
18 Potato fears, support: Reader 2009:111–31 (Frederick, 119); Salaman 1985 (“provoke Lust,” 106; disease, 108–14; Orthodox, 116; “Popery!,” 120); Roze 1898 (establishment, 98; fears, 99, 122–23; “peasants and laborers?,” 143). Beeton 1863:585 (potato water). My thanks to Ted Melillo for drawing the last to my attention.
19 Parmentier and France: Standage 2009:121–22; Reader 2009:120–22 (Jefferson, 121); Bouton 1993 (summary of Flour War, xix-xxi); Laufer 1938:63–65; Anon. 1914 (captured five times); Roze 1898:148–82ff. (“Nourish Man,” 149; “other countries,” 152); Cuvier 1861.
20 European famines, Malthusian trap: Clark 2007:1–8, 19–39; Komlos 1998 (“At least until 1800, but in some places even thereafter, the European demographic system was in a Malthusian homeostatic quasi-equilibrium,” 67); Bouton 1993:xix-xxi (food riots); Braudel 1981–84:vol. 1, 74–75 (forty famines, Florence), 143–45 (other quotes); Appleby 1978:102–25ff. (England); Walford 1879:10–12, 266–68 (England).
21 Young’s observations: Young 1771:vol. 4, 119–20 (“promoted”), 235–36 (grain), 310 (“in it”). Vandenbroeke (1971:37) cites similar figures for the Netherlands.
22 Four to one (footnote): Atwater 1910:11 (wheat dry matter); Langworthy 1910:10 (potato dry matter). Contemporary breeding has increased the dry matter in both crops a bit.
23 Potato and food supply: Radkau 2008:6 (“interruptus”); Vanhaute et al. 2007:22–23 (10–30 percent); Malanima 2006:111 (calorie supply doubles); Crosby 2003:177 (complementing existing crops), 1995; Clarkson and Crawford 2001:59–79 (40 percent, 59); McNeill 1999 (one-third to one-half land, 79); Komlos 1998; Zuckerman 1999; Masefield 1980:299–301; Langer 1975; Vandenbroeke 1971:38–39 (“food problem”); Connell 1962:60–61. Potato country: According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (faostat.fao.org), the top twelve potato consumers, all in the Eastern Hemisphere, stretched in a band from Ireland to the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Thanks to Ted Melillo for drawing my attention to Radkau.
24 Increased reliability: Reader 2009:99 (summer), 118–19 (army); Vandenbroeke 1971:21 (army), 38 (summer crop); McNeill 1999:78 (army); Young 1771:vol. 4, 121–23.
25 Potato as healthy diet: Zuckerman 1999:6, 31. My sentence about vitamins is a rewritten version of a sentence in Nunn and Qian (2010:169).
26 Smith quotes: Smith 1979:vol. 1, 176–77 (bk. 1, chap. 11, §n, ¶39). Potatoes and maize were, Smith thought, “the two most important improvements which the agriculture of Europe—perhaps, which Europe itself—has received from the great extension of its commerce and navigation” (vol. 1, 259 [bk. 1, chap. 11, §n, ¶10]).
27 Potato as cause of population increase: Standage 2009:124–28; Reader 2009:127–29; Clarkson and Crawford 2001:29, 228–33; Zuckerman 1999:220–28; Livi-Bacci 1997:30–34 (doubling); Salaman 1985:541–42; Langer 1975; McKeown et al. 1972; Vandenbroeke 1971:38; Wrigley