THE NEW CHINESE POTATO. 



The strongest point, perhaps, in favcr of the new candidate for cultivation is the fact 

 it will grow best on sandy downs usually considered Uarren, and may be regarded as a 

 messenger sent by Providence to reclaim our most extensive wastes, in advance of the 

 onward strides of population. It is, indeed, pointed out by its partisans as a probable 

 means of converting waste land to a useful purpose, as well as profit. Neither does it 

 require strong or liquid manure — items expressly forbidden in its culture ; but pits filled 

 with earth and a mixture of decayed manure, and treatment similar to that bestowed 

 upon asparagus, are strongly recommended as the means of producing the most abundant 

 crop, the question of the expense of manual labor being asserted to be of little conse- 

 quence, compared with the remunerative results. 



[Tlie following description and details in regard to this most important vegetaLle 

 acquisition, are copied from a publication recently issued at Paris. 



The flesh is white, very mealy, and equal in quality to the potato. The stems of 

 the plant are twining, and grow to the height of 4 to 6 feet, the leaves heart shaped, 

 the flowers very small, dioecious, of a yellowish color, and produced from the axils of 

 the leaves. If planted in April, the Dioscorea will by the ensuing October produce 

 tubers 15 to 20 inches long, slightly swelling at the ends, being club form, and 

 weighing from 10 to 14 ounces each. Of all the plants which have been proposed 

 as substitutes for the potato, the Dioscorea is the only one which presents claims 

 sufficiently strong to sustain the competition, for if the Dioscorea can enter into a 

 successful competition with the Potato for the quality of its tubers, it can most as- 

 suredly do so by the quantity of its crops. The plants when placed at a distance of 

 12 inches by 8, will, according to the authority of Professor Decaisne and M. Paillet, 

 yield about 290 cwt., (per acre, we suppose,) or 14i tons when growing from April 

 to October, or 48 tons if allowed to remain two seasons in the ground, that is, to 

 occupy the ground from April of one year till October of the subsequent one. In 

 the latter case, the roots attain a much larger size, and are often of two pounds 

 weight. 



Although we can scarcely realize that so great a product may be obtained, we 

 nevertheless think that this plant deserves in every respect to be fully tested, and 

 the other circumstances that would recommend the Dioscorea Batatas to the serious 

 attention of every cultivator, are the facility of its culture, and its extraordinary 

 hardihood, which latter enables it, as the experience of the two past winters show, 

 to sustain in open field culture 5° of Fahrenheit, and probably a still more intense 

 degree of cold. Being of a perennial character, the most profitable course would 

 seem to be, to grow crops of two years, as there is by this mode a much greater yield 

 from the increase of size of the tubers. 



This plant is growing in various places in the United States. We shall soon have 

 reports respecting it here. Next month we shall give a portrait of the root, and 

 communicate a full account of the mode of culture. — Ed.] 



