318 DISEASES OF FIELD & GARDEN CROPS. [on. 



Mr. Baker lias not seen S. Commersoni, Dun., in a 

 living state, but he says that 8. Ohrondii, Carr., recently 

 described and illustrated in the Revue Horticole, 1883, pp. 

 496-500, Figs. 99, 100, and afterwards adverted to at 

 some length by the horticultural press of this country, is 

 the same plant. Sir Joseph Hooker, in the Flora Antarc- 

 tica, reduces it to a mere form of the common edible 

 potato, 8. tuberosum, L. Tubers of this plant were lately 

 brought by M. Ohrond, a French naval surgeon, from the 

 island of Goritti, at the mouth of the Kio de la Plata, 

 and grown at Brest by M. Blanchard, gardener-in-chief of 

 the Marine Hospital, who writes as follows : " From the 

 time of its importation I have cultivated the plant, or 

 rather left it to itself to grow, for it is almost impossible 

 to destroy it when once it has become established in a 

 piece of ground. Each year, at the end of June or the 

 beginning of July, I have collected the tubers ; but the 

 rootstock creeps so widely that always plenty have re- 

 mained in the ground to furnish stock for another year. 

 It is my belief that it would be easy to improve the 

 tubers by simply cultivating them. Already the culti- 

 vated tubers are much better than those which I received 

 from M. Ohrond. The wild tubers were scarcely bigger 

 than small walnuts, but some of those of the cultivated 

 plants have attained the size of small hen's eggs. I may 

 add that the tubers are quite palatable, with a taste of 

 chestnuts, but leaving in the mouth a slight flavour of 

 acidity, like that of a potato that has sprouted. My 

 workmen and I have tried them both boiled and baked 

 in the oven ; the latter are preferable. As to the hardi- 

 ness of the plant it is complete at least here at Brest. 

 During the winter of 1881, when the thermometer fell 

 two degrees centigrade below freezing point, the tubers 

 took no harm, and up to the present time the plant has not 

 been found to suffer in the least from disease." 



Mr. Baker thinks that our present method of potato 

 culture unfits the plant to resist disease by exciting the 



