The Potato, Or The S. Tuberosum

They became as important as wheat and rice. After they were settled down, people could not imagine their lives without those accustomed crops. Because of no necessity in cultivated soil, potato and corn grew well almost everywhere. Those crops saved lives of huge numbers of European poor people. Pigs and cattle were feed, which led to the increase of meat on the markets. The population of Europe and Asia grew tremendously since potato and maize were first introduced to the people. “Between 1650 and 1750, the population of Europe, including Asiatic Russia, increased from 103 million to 144; the population of Asia, excluding Russia, increased from 327 million to 475 million” (Stearns et al.

In the new world, Europeans encountered indigenous plant foods cultivated by Native Americas. These plants were potatoes, beans, corn, tobacco, and cocoa. The potato is especially important because it’s known for one of the main foods for Ireland. The European’s influenced oats and barley etc. Domesticated animals as pigs, chickens, sheep, and ox were also brought to the Americas. Horses were also brought to the new world which was a new tool for hunting and used for military.

What many people only know about Christopher Columbus’s expedition is that he found the Americas. While this is true, he did find a completely new frontier that was unknown to the Old World, his findings re-shaped global consumption patterns from the seventeenth century. He found a New World filled with resources that the old world hasn’t seen before. When he found the new world he brought with him European plants and animal species that were foreign to the citizens of the New World. The Columbian Exchange introduced many foods that are still essential to consumption in today’s world along with the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The potato is a prime example of how the Columbian Exchange changed global consumption patterns because it was nutritious and had an abundant amount of calories in it and caused a mass population increase in areas where the potato was available. The use of slaves also increased exponentially when sugar cane was introduced. This was a very cheap, productive way to produce a large amount of sugar and it was used by many Old World countries. The findings of these new world products created a rise in global consumption and production because products were introduced to the both the New World and the Old World and there instantly became a large spike in the availability of products. Along with this, the old world decided to go out and get themselves involved in the New World because they saw an opportunity

The Columbian Exchange brought new crops to Europe from the Americas that benefitted the Europeans greatly. The new crops allowed for a higher caloric value and caused the Europeans to adopt American crops. In Document 6 it states “… the people of the Americas realized that crops with higher caloric value could not only feed more people, but also allowed people to work harder because they were more energized” (Document 6). These crops allowed more people to be fed and more labor to be achieved in Europe. In Document 8, it lists the different varieties of crops traded through the Columbian Exchange. One example of such a crop is the potato. Crops like

After the Spanish settled in America, many new foods and species of plants were introduced to the people of Eurasia, none of which they had said before. Although most of the exchange of food was from the New World to the Old World, Eurasia also introduced the America’s to wheat and grapes, two very important foods for mass. Potatoes and corn were a major part of the Columbian Exchange as they provided a lot of nutrition and were very easy to grow. They could grow in soil that was previously useless for agriculture. Other foods that spread across Europe were tomatoes, peppers, chocolate, beans, pineapples, avocados and blueberries. This exchange of food was the main reason that the worlds population doubled from 545,000,000 in 1600 to 1,128,000,000 in 1850 and historians often describe this massive increase in the nutritional value and variety of

The conquistadors eventually used potatoes as rations on their ships and took it back to Spain (Chapman, n.d.). From there, the potato spread to other countries. Unfortunately, the potato was “regarded with suspicion, distaste and fear.” (Chapman, n.d.) Only animals were fed the potatoes at first but as time went on, the aristocracy of Europe began to encourage the lower classes to begin cultivating potatoes. Potatoes, however, did not become a staple until roughly 1795 and the food shortages that came during the time of the Revolutionary Wars in England. (Chapman, n.d.)

He enormously increased the number of kinds of foods and quantities of food by both plant and animal sources. New food crops have enabled people to live in places where they previously had only slim means of feeding themselves. Each new cargo brought new changes to the European diet, helping to improve eating and strengthening national identities with cultural foods. Some of the exotic new crops had humble beginnings; before the tomato made its way into European diets, it was a weed in the Aztec maize fields. The potatoes which hung on to Spanish ships wasn't welcomed at first either; Europeans found it unappetizing. But packing more calories per acre than any European grain, the potato eventually became the dominant food of northern Europe's working class.

Chocolate wasn’t bad either.” (Document 6). Although the potato and corn were not cash crops, they quickly became apart of every European’s diet. Potatoes were affordable and could be used in many different ways. Although, the New World received livestock such as cattle, pigs and horses, they also recieved diseases.

Also, the best form of transportation that the Europeans greatly relied on to carry their valuable resource from one place to another it was by riding horses. Domesticated animals were a fundamental part in European society due to it maintain a reliable, high energy food source through many colonies. Whenever the new settlers introduced animals to the New World, they would let wild pigs run free to the land as a new food source for the Europeans. This had a negative contribution to the new land due to new animals destroyed most native’s crops. Therefore; the Natives Americans were highly exposed to the different outcomes that change their way life. In the Columbian Exchange food crops like corn, potatoes, etc. was cultivated by the Native Americans. In the new world the big advantage over the old word was the food crops that indigenous people were able to produce due to great soil and stretch land. Potato has been for many centuries a great crop to grow because it resisted cold climate and it would grow on thin

When Europeans went to the new world they learned how to grow subsistent crops like the potatoes. Potatoes saved many lives in parts of Ireland, Scotland, and especially Russia, because of their harsh environment potatoes are one of the few crops that can grow. And as a result hundreds of thousands of people didn’t starve, which helped lead to European expansion.

The exchange of crops would prove to be essential for the expansion of European populations. Staple crops in particular would migrate to Europe with returning ships, and crops such as potatoes and corn would become massively important in the diets of European peoples. The staple crops brought to Europe also had the advantage of requiring growing conditions very different from traditional European crops. This had the

Contact between Native Americans and Europeans brought changes to European societies through three ways. First, with many new resources, Europeans were able to start the Columbian Exchange. The Columbian Exchange was basically the transfer of new resources and technology from the New World to the Old World and from the Old World to the New World. Second, since new types of crops were introduced to the Europeans, these new crops improved many of the European’s diets. For an example, before potatoes were introduced to the Old World, grains and wheat were the main parts of the European diets. But, after potatoes were introduced to the European countries, potatoes became the substitutions for grain and wheat because they were convenient to cultivate.

The Europeans were introduced to many crops when coming to America. Beans, potatoes and squash were a few of the crops that were spreading throughout the land. Corn, however, was a very important crop to the Indians and the Europeans made sure to adopt this crop into their culture. As a trade, corn was soon introduced to other continents such as Africa and became one of the main crops for survival.

Europe gained a new wave of crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, maze, and cassava. Europe was introduced to less caloric

In the summer of 1845 a potato disease struck Ireland. A fungus Photophthora Infestans turned the potato harvest into decaying blackish masses of rottenness, unfit for human or animal consumption. Potato diseases had