286 



THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



Dioscorea Batatas, or the New Chinese Potato. 



Tins new potato was, several 

 years since, transmitted, along 

 with other useful and promising 

 agricultural plants, by M. de 

 Montigny, who is consul for 

 France at the port of Shanghai, 

 in Northern China. The name 

 which he bestowed upon it was 

 that of Dioscorea japonica; but 

 it has been considered that Dios- 

 corea batatas would not only be a 

 more popular and familiar, but a 

 more appropriate name ; seeing 

 that although the plant may in 

 its origin be Japanese, of its cul- 

 tivation in that dark interior we 

 know literally nothing ; while its 

 culture in the northern parts of 

 China, and in latitudes assimi- 

 lated to our own in point of cli- 

 mate, being a hot quite accessible 

 in all its details, ought not to be 

 submerged under the name that 

 associates it with the very exclu- 

 sive territory of Japan. The 

 plant, or rather tuber, is doubt- 

 less a dioscorea or yam ; and 

 yams in general are tropical pro- 

 ductions. The various species — 

 D. alata, sativa, and aculcata — 

 yield tubers, which in warm 

 countries are substituted for the 

 potato; and the order is accused 

 of combining with the farina- 

 ceous matter existing in its tubers 

 a prevalent acridity, which is 

 sometimes even purgative. Still 

 a few genera are found in tempe- 

 rate olimates. Yet all this is 

 nothing. The Solamun tuberosum, 

 our cultivate. l potato itself, is, it 

 is well known, quite ■ poisotUHM 

 plant in I state of nature. Cul- 

 ture may readily ameliorate all 

 this acridity : and. iffrecan cre- 

 dit all that 1im< been said In favor 

 of the new importation, has far 

 more than done so. Certain it 

 la, that it holds the same place 

 in the north of Chinn, ami is found to comprise the same nutritive properties, U the potato in 

 country. M. de Ifontigny has stated thai the Chinese at taking up the crop set aside all 



the smaller roots for seed. It is well known that this is a practice aow preferred bj OUT 

 mil lenera to cutting large potatoes into seta, simply becnuso they like a juicy set, 



