THE NEW CUINESE POTATO. 



This new potato was, several 

 yeai-s since, transmitted, along 

 with other useful and promising 

 agricultural plants, by M. de Mon- 

 tigny, who is C nsul for France at 

 the Port of Shanghai, in Northern 

 China. The name which he be- 

 stowed upon it was that of Dios- 

 corea japonica; but it has been 

 considered by Professor Decaisne, 

 of the Parisian Museum of Natural 

 History [Jardin des plantes), and 

 acknowledged by Professor Lindley 

 and others, that Dioscorea batatas 

 would not only be a more popular 

 and familiar, but a more appropri- 

 ate name, seeing that although the 

 plant may in its origin be Japan- 

 ese, of its cultivation in that dark 

 interior we know literally nothing; 

 whilst its culture in the northern 

 parts of China, and in latitudes 

 assimilated to our own in point of 

 climate, being a fact quite acces- 

 sible 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 doubtless a Di- 

 oscorea, or yam ; and yams in ge- 

 neral are tropical productions. 

 The various species — D. alata, sa- 

 tiva, and aculeata — yield tubers, 

 which in warm countries are sub- 

 stituted for the potato, and the 

 order is accused of combining with 

 the farinaceous matter existing in 

 its tubers a prevalent acridity, 

 which is sometimes even purgative. 

 Still a few genera are found in 

 temperate climates. Our black 

 bryony, of the English hedge-rows 

 (Tamus communis), is one, though, 

 to be sure, it is no great bargain; 



for though its fruit is red and succulent, its root is very acrid. Yet all this is nothing 

 The Solanum tuberosum, our cultivated potato itself, is, it is well known, quite a poison 



plant in a state of nature. Culture may readily ameliorate all this acridity ; 



