159 



Great care should also be exercised in selecting and planting the 

 finest varieties of seedlings. Nor should it be forgotten that too 

 much importance has been attached to the transportation of potatoes 

 for planting to localities distant from those in which thej grew. The 

 gain from that practice will hardlj pay the expense. Seedlings 

 adapt themselves to their home, and do as well there as elsewhere. 



But it seems to me that our chief hope of success lies in planting 

 potatoes and seed brought directly from their native country and 

 their wild state. Even should it be true, as it has been sometimes 

 asserted, that such a course is not absolutely certain to be successful; 

 yet it is much more likely to be so than any hitherto proposed. We 

 can thus start anew ; and with the multiplied facilities of science, and 

 with hosts of intelligent farmers and gardeners, we may, in a com- 

 paratively short time, restore this important plant to its former health 

 and productiveness. It is the duty of those having the means and 

 opportunities, to use them in a work so intimately connected with the 

 pecuniary and social prosperity of the people. Nor would it be 

 improper for the Government of the United States to instruct its 

 diplomatic agents to institute inquiries, and to make personal ex- 

 aminations touching this subject, in other countries. It is said* that 

 there are some kinds of potatoes cultivated in South America 

 superior for table use to any known among us. 



We have heard that distinguished agriculturists in this County 

 have received and planted wild potatoes from New Mexico. We 

 have read also in the Patent Office Reports statements that wild 

 potatoes, or what have been thought to be such, have recently been 

 found in that part of the country. It is well to receive this latter 

 account with caution. Humboldt and other eminent botanists assert, 

 that the potato is indigenous only in Chili ; yet recently it has been 

 said that wild potatoes have been discovered in Peru.f Certainly 



and press upon it the half-pulverized earth. Heavy rains beat down the ground, 

 and render it so solid as to be almost inaccessible by atmospheric influence. If 

 the ground were ploughed deep, then cross-ploughed, then harrowed and made 

 fine and light, so that the sun, air, and rain might have free access to the plants, 

 there is reason to believe that the increase of the quantity, and the improvement 

 of the quality, of the crop would repay the additional expense. 



* Sabine, Lond. Hor. Soc. Trans., vol. 5, p. 240. 

 t Lambert's Journal of Science and Arts, vol. 10. 



