EXPERIMENTS WITH CHILIAN SEED-POTATOES. 145 



English wheat. In these cases varieties have been 

 carried from a warmer to a cooler climate ; in the 

 reverse case, as when wheat was imported from 

 France into the West Indian Islands, it produced 

 either wholly barren spikes or furnished with only 

 two or three miserable seeds, while West Indian 

 seed by its side yielded an enormous harvest. Here 

 is another case of close adaptation to a slightly 

 cooler climate : a kind of wheat, which in England 

 may be used indifPerently either as a summer or 

 winter variety, when sown under the warmer climate 

 of Grignan in France, behaved as if it had been a 

 true winter wheat." 



From this the question naturally arises : Supposing 

 these experiments with the wheat to have been con- 

 tinued long enough, would the different varieties 

 have at length adapted themselves to their new 

 conditions, or would their characters have proved to 

 be so fixed that they would liave been incapable of 

 adaptation ? 



Again, it may be asked : Will these Chilian 

 potatoes ever adapt themselves to the climate and 

 soil of Britain ? This is yet undetermined. 



Some of my friends, discouraged at not getting a 

 good crop on the first or second trial, have given 

 up the experiment ; but I think it should be con- 

 tinued for a few years longer, to see what result 

 will be ultimately attained. 



As regards the i^roblem of how to get rid of the 

 disease, I am happy to see that it seems to be 

 already partially solved, several of the varieties 

 raised from seed out of the " iDlums" being practically 

 disease-resisting. It is therefore unnecessary to go 

 to a foreign country to find a sound stock. 



