144 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



year 1883 were fully as i)rolific as the seed you sent 

 in the spring of the present year. They are quite 

 free from disease ; but we have not had so much 

 disease on potatoes generally this season as in some 

 of the past seasons. I may say the long-shaped 

 potatoes did not crop quite so heavily as the others, 

 but were quite an average crop." 



I may here explain that Mr. Brown has had the 

 Chilians for only two seasons ; and that the seed I 

 sent him this spring, Avhich has not been quite so 

 prolific as the other, ^vas the produce of the second 

 lot imported. The " long-shaped potatoes " mentioned 

 by Mr. Brown are the Papas-Reynas (Queen Potato), 

 a third variety of Avhich I have yet said nothing, 

 but may give their history on some future occasion. 

 From the details I have now given, it will be seen 

 that the second crop was better than the first, and 

 the third better than the second ; also, that the seed 

 imported in 1883 has not yet made up on that im- 

 ported a year earlier — all which goes to prove that 

 these foreign plants are taking a few years to become 

 acclimatised. They have behaved like some Australian 

 potatoes I spoke of last year. These were given by 

 a sea-captain to m^^ brother in Chile, who i^lanted 

 them in his garden, where they produced immense 

 shaAvs, but no tubers to si^eak of. I believe that the 

 13roduce, such as it was, was not planted the following 

 year. 



Mr. Darwin, in his Animals and Plants under 

 Domestication, vol. ii., j). 297, gives some curious facts 

 on acclimatisation. He says : " With the varieties of 

 many plants, the adaptation to climate is often very 

 close. Thus it has been proved by repeated trials 

 that few, if any, of the English varieties of wheat 

 are adaj)ted for cultivation in Scotland ; but the 

 failure in this case is at first only in the quantity, 

 though ultimately in the quality of the grain pro- 

 duced. The Rev. M. J. Berkeley sowed wheat-seed 

 from India, and got the most meagre ears on land 

 which would certainly have yielded a good crop from 



