February 5, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTIOTJLTDRE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



125 



seed (sets) should be very carefully selected, choosing those 

 that have the greatest rotundity, and have the ends as nearly 

 alike as possible, rejecting those with thick noses and small 

 tails, and this persisted in annually will keep the Lapstone 

 very select. Than the old true Lapstone there is no better 

 kind of Potato as a second early; but to say that all the varie- 

 ties given at page 55 are synonyms of the Lapstone is decidedly 

 wrong. Of the Lapstone race they are, and degenerate, but 

 all are distinct from the Lapstone, which nine-tenths of those 

 under that title are not. No variety, as before stated, varies 

 so much, no luud is so difScult to obtain a break from seed. 

 The seedlings all run back to the Copper-nosed Kidney, or 

 have great length with flatness. Only once have I made sure 

 of a break. I have at last a Lapstone with a rose skin, the 

 tubers being long, flat, curved, thick nose, small tail end, 

 double the size of the parent, with a thick sprout, purple and 

 stout; haulm weak, erect, more like that of a round kind 

 than a kidney, and though a late kind in sprouting, not need- 

 ing to bo planted on that account before April, or even May. 

 It ripens with the second earlies, and when the disease is severe 

 sheds its leaves, and escapes it. It will suit the Koyal Agri- 

 cultural Society ; the Irisli Farmer's Gazette will not treat it, 

 because of the Lapstone race, as a synonym of that variety. 



Regent is made the same as Early Oxford. It is time to 

 give in, for they are as diverse as any two round Potatoes well 

 can be, and I should not trouble about it except to say that 

 those wanting a good Regent will find it in Walker's Early, 

 which beats the whole of the Regents, being earlier, with a 

 stiff erect haulm. It would be a happy union of blood whoso- 

 ever might give the earliness of the Early Don and a touch of 

 its pink eye to the Regent. 



Red-skinned Plourball I must confess to being deceived in. 

 I had what I thought was it, but discarded it from its being a 

 " SoapbaU," when last year I had some Red-skinned Flonrball 

 sent me. They were very different from the other, having 

 shallow eyes and a rough skin, the first having deep-suuk eyes 

 and a smooth skin. I have at last the true sort as originally 

 sent out by Messrs. Sutton & Sous, Beading ; and though it 

 boils well now, cooked in the oven or roasted it is better. The 

 American Red is not Eed-skinned Flourball nor Boston Red : 

 both are the same as I had at first — what the Irlxli Farmer's 

 Gazette may know, if it can reach back to the time of the 

 disease becoming general in 1845, as the Irish Cups, and well 

 the eyes resemble cups. 



I have no seedlings to recommend, though I have one or 

 two for the Royal Agricultural Society ready now, and may 

 in 1878 have more that no art of man can prevail against by 

 persistent bad cultivation with disease. I do, however, recom- 

 mend the old Ashleaf Kidney, its improved form, Myatt's 

 Prolific Ashleaf, Lapstone, and a round flat sort, Paterson's 

 Victoria, with Walker's Early Regent, and Red-skinned Flour- 

 ball, making sure that you have it, and New Hundredfold 

 Fluke, the latter a piebald sort, and with the next preceding a 

 late good keeper. I am also glad to verify the statement of 

 " D., Deal," that they are not subject to nor have had disease. 



Just a word about WiUai'd, a red-skinned sort that boils 

 beautifully white, and is excellent both in cropping and quality. 

 Excelsior is a fine white sort, round as is WQlard, and both 

 have dwarf hauhn — the very type of haulm we want, but lacking 

 the woody character of Hundredfold Fluke and Eed-skinned 

 Flourball. I have some seed from Excelsior, from which I 

 hope for much. 



Mr. Luckhurst is disappointed at the result of the Potato 

 essays, no prize being awarded. I agree with the finding of 

 the Judges, but I do not agree with the " blundering " policy of 

 the Royal Agricultural Society. If the essays were not worth 

 the £100 prize, surely the Society ought to have been above 

 saving themselves £100 to offer in a prize for that which the 

 essays did not contain. The essays have had taken from them 

 their substance ; a basis for the Royal Agricultural Society to act 

 upon has been given ; and I am sure none of the essayists will 

 begrudge the time and labour expended if only the result be 

 the improved cultivation of the Potato, which, however, the 

 Society ignore, choosing rather to seek for disease-resisting new 

 kinds to battle against the present mode of cultivation, which 

 it needs no one extraordinarily endowed to discern, is with the 

 Royal Agricultural Society perfection. Go on, Mr. Luckhurst, 

 cultivation is more at faultthan the Potato ; but make it good 

 as you may, the fact remains that whether the treatment be 

 good or not, there are conditions attending the culture of the 

 Potato over which the cultivator has no direct or certain con- 

 trol — in other words, Potatoes are diseased under the best 



cultivation, as I contend they have been for a very lengthened 

 period, if not through all time. 



Wo want hardier-constitutioned kinds of Potatoes — kinds 

 that will endure the vicissitudes of our climate ; kinds that by 

 bad cultivation as for centuries practised will not becomo 

 diseased ; kinds that are disease-resisting, mere waxy lumps 

 of matter as yet, but which we all of us wish to see floury, 

 suited alike to the Royal Agricultural Society and the con- 

 sumer. It is about as likely we shall have disease-proof Po- 

 tatoes in 1878, and continue the present general cultivation, 

 as wo shall then enter on a period of uninterrupted prosperity 

 and peace. — A. 



CHATSWORTH, 



THE .SEAT OF THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE.— No. 1. 



Chatswokth is a hamlet of Edensor parish, about nine miles 

 from Chesterfield in Derbyshire ; it was known in Norman times 

 as Chetesworde, and belonged to the Crown, though it was in 

 the custody of William de Peverel, ancestor of that " Peverel 

 of the Peak" Sir Walter Scott has celebrated. From the 

 Peverels it passed to the Leche family, so named from their 

 ancestor being the king's leech or suigeon. From thence it 

 passed to an Agard, who sold it to Sir William Cavendish, and 

 it has since remained in the possession of his descendants. 

 He married the well-known heiress of Hardwick, and thus 

 became the chief of the Derbyshire aristocracy. He began to 

 erect a noble mansion, but dying before even one of its wings 

 was finished, the completion devolved on his widow, who by 

 htr fourth marriage became Countess of Shrewsbury. That 

 building did not satisfy the first Duke of Devonshire, so he 

 began (in .Tames II.'s reign) to reconstruct it. This was in 

 1C87, and the mansion was finally completed as it now appears 

 in 170G. 



What memories, associations, and reflections crowd on one's 

 mind at the mention of this place ! No need to couple with it 

 the claptrap name of the " Palace of the Peak," a name which 

 certainly gives one the notion that towering abovt) its stately 

 halls is to be seen the pictuiesque mountain bearing that 

 appellation, instead of its being some fifteen miles away. No 

 need to tell a gardener at least of the number of its rooms, 

 the size of its halls, the costliness of its decorations, or the 

 value of its paintings : to him it speaks of somethiug above 

 and beyond all these. It was the home of Paxtou, the place 

 where the Victoria regia first opened its beauties in England, 

 where the house is now so celebrated as the model of that 

 glass palace to which all the world was attracted in 1051, and 

 which now crowns the heights of Sydenham — one of tho chief 

 .■jources of pleasure to an overgrown metropolis, and in addition 

 to all this still the homo of many a rare plant, and the place 

 where all interested in our beloved pursuit may find amuse- 

 ment and instruction. 



It was with some such feelings that I turned aside on my 

 way to the great Manchester Exhibition in September last to 

 pay a long-promised visit to Chatsworth. It had for many a 

 year been treasured up as a treat in store, and now that it has 

 been enjoyed the memory of it wUl cling to me as one of those 

 bright days in the calendar cretu iiotaiula. It was a lovely 

 evening when I found myself at the Eowsley station, and there 

 being no 'bus for more than an hour, I started off for a most 

 lovely walk to Edensor. It was moonlight before I reached 

 the village ; and the splendid foliage, the calmness of the night, 

 broken only at times by the deer as they bounded through the 

 bracken, tended to make the walk most enjoyable. The hotel 

 at Edensor is charmingly situated, and I am bound to say I 

 was as comfortably lodged and taken care of as I could have 

 been at any west-end hotel, but truth compels me also to say 

 I had to pay quite as much for my accommodation as I had at 

 the " Langham " a week before. The whole aspect of the 

 village suggests to me the thought, that of all forms of society 

 the feudal is (when the carrying-oul of it is complete and the 

 head of it considerate), that which ensures the best results; 

 just as of all forms of government despotism, if the despot be 

 truly the father of his people, is that which secures the greatest 

 happiness. Here at Edensor you have the very ideal of a 

 village : the houses all so beautifully built and the gardens so 

 well kept, the church and school standing in the midst of the 

 people, that but for that most disturbing element our poor 

 human nature, one might suppose that this must be the abode 

 of contentment and peace. 



Ou the following morning, in accordance with a courteous 

 invitation from Mr. Speed, the able gardener at Chatsworth, 



