Indigenous Potatoes of North America. 147 



changes in plants, seed-bolls or tubers. I have repeated substantially last 

 year's selectien of stock for planting next year (1885), only having a much 

 larger stock to cull from. I have drawn the line closer to what I desire to 

 accomplish. * * * 



"We must increase the size of the tuber, improve its quality and endeavor 

 to retain all desirable quaUties such as vigor, hardiness, capacity to resist 

 disease, etc., and shorten the stems. How are we to do this? My plan is 

 to select every year at the time of harvest the largest, best tubers grown 

 within a circle of one foot, the closer lo mother stem the better. Save only 

 the seed-bolls of such plants. Sow the seeds, continuing to so select an- 

 nually until the end, a desirable tuber conveniently located, is attained." 



Then, after discussing the feature that the potato is not a root, but a con- 

 densed stem having all the properties of a branch, subject to bud-variation, 

 etc., he continues : 



"Some men, prominent ii: horticulture, and one particularly so in potato 

 culture, pronounces these wildings utterly worthless. If the opinion enter- 

 tained by Dr. Gray, that they are but marked northern varieties of the south- 

 ern type, is correct, then why are they worthless, incapable of development ? 



" If Mr. Goodrich, from a few generations of seedlings (and those from the 

 wild southern plants), gave us the only advance we have made for many 

 years, if not in reality giving us a new potato plant for the dead old one, why 

 may we not expect far better results from this northern form of the same 

 plant ■? 



" I hear of one man who had them under careful cultivation eight years, 

 and they made no improvement. Now, I boldly assert that he might have 

 continued to raise them for 800 years, every season selecting the largest 

 tubers and replanting, and at the end of that long period he would have just 

 what he started with — nothing more. I will admit that under exceptional 

 climatic conditions, exceptional soil and culture he may have gained a little 

 in size, and improved other features perceptibly, but all would be quickly 

 lost by a return to normal culture. When we plant cuttings of the Concord 

 grape we expect a vine of the Concord. When we graft a scion of the Rhode 

 Island Greening we expect a tree of Greenings. When we bud a luscious 

 early peach we do not expect to rear a tasteless frost blight. 



" So with potatoes, which are but condensed stems of buds. We reap what 

 we sow; we dig what we plant. It is true there is bud variation, but it is 

 very slight; does not often occur except with plants long under cultivation. 

 When they do occur they are liable to be unstable and may at any time re- 

 vert. I have cultivated a great many varieties of potatoes said to be sports 

 of various well known sorts, but never had one that proved permanent, and 

 the notion with me is gaining ground that these sports are, to some extent, 

 signs of failing vigor, perhaps of disease. * * * Past experience indicates 

 that plants raised from the seed, on the contrary, as a rule are stable. While 

 many of the plants raised from seeds may prove inferior to their parentage, 

 a few are almost certain to advance the standard, and the cultivator should 



