94 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The potato balls should be gathered when perfectly ripe, and the 

 seeds rubbed out with the hands. At the end of the second year 

 some idea of their value can be obtained, for when raised from 

 seed no special resemblance to their parents in form, color, or 

 general characteristics, can be anticipated. Instances are on 

 record where, out of 300 seedlings, not one resembled the parent. 

 The Rev. C. E. Goodrich — who devoted a life-time to originating 

 new varieties from seed — saved as worthy of propagation, only 

 about a dozen sorts out of some 36,000. 



Several theories have been propounded to account for the origin 

 of sub-varieties. Every egg in the animal world — every seed in 

 the vegetable world — is the combined product, or the result of 

 sexual action. The pollen from the stamen falling upon the pistil 

 impregnates it and causes the formation of fruit containing seed. 



Variation by mingling in the hill is believed in by some. Mr. 

 Trail stated before the Botanical Society in Edinburgh, that he 

 cut about 60 blue and white potatoes into halves, through the 

 eyes, and then carefully joined them, destroying at the same time 

 the other eyes. Some of these united tubers produced white, and 

 others blue tiibers. Some were partly blue and partly white, and 

 some were mottled. 



The " Gardener's Chronicle" says : " A single eye in a tuber of 

 the old Forty-Fvld Potato, which is a purple variety, was observed 

 to become white ; this eye was cut out and planted separately, 

 and the kind has since been largely propagated and kept true to its 

 color of it7w7e." Dr. Anderson observed the same phenomenon in 

 the Irish purple variety. 



Kejnp^s Potato is white, but a plant in Lancashire produced two 

 tubers which were white, and two which were red ; the red kind 

 was propagated by eyes and soon became known as a red potato, 

 under the name of Taijlor's Forty-Fold. The California potato is 

 much inclined to " sport," producing kinds widely differing in both 

 shape and color from the parent form. Such sports, involving 

 change of the form and color of the tuber in the hill, is probably 

 due to the law of " reversion" or a returning back to some former 

 type. 



The catalogues enumerate more than 500 varieties. Many of 

 them have several synonyms or misnomers. The Chenango — for 

 instance — is known as the Mercer, Meshannock, Nesliannock, 

 Philadelphia and Gilkey. Some of these kinds, notoriously un- 

 productive or uncertain, are re-christened with a takwg title, and 



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