ORIGINATING NEW POTATOES. 39 



1. What is required in a new seedling to make it an 

 acquisition? The requirement in a potato, to be accepted by 

 the public as a standard, is, that while it equals standards 

 already accepted in other characteristics, it shall also excel 

 them in one or more. Now, the characteristics that make up 

 a model variety, relate to yield, quality, flavor, freedom from 

 rot, shape, size, color of skin, number of eyes, depth of eye, 

 color of flesh, keeping properties, soundness at the heart, 

 earliness or lateness of maturity, manner of distribution in 

 the ground, and habit of growth of the vines. I think that 

 it may be assumed that, before any originator has the right to 

 send forth any new variety as an acquisition, he must be able 

 to demonstrate that his protege is a decided acquisition in 

 some one of these characteristics, and fully up to the average 

 in the remainder. In determining this, he must make more 

 than a comparison on his own grounds, for, from the discrep- 

 ancy between the results that some originators state they find 

 in a comparison between their seedlings and the standard 

 sorts, and the results that others find when they make the 

 same comparison, it is evident that it is true of seedling pota- 

 toes as with seedling strawberries, new varieties will often 

 do their best on the land where they originated. I would 

 here suggest, that it may be a wise step for growers of new 

 varieties to state the kind of soil in which they originated, as 

 the point is not yet settled as to whether or not new sorts do 

 their best in the same soil on which they originated. 



From an expedience in testing hundreds of seedlings sent 

 to me from different States, in the course of several years, 

 almost all of them claimed as decided acquisitions by their 

 sanguine originators, I deduce the following suggestions rela- 

 tive to the various characteristics required in a new seedling 

 before its claim to be admitted as a standard variety should 

 be allowed. Taking them in the order given, the yield, under 

 good cultivation, should be at least two hundred bushels to 

 the acre. Fancy cultivation of small area will at times give 

 a yield of three or four hundred bushels to the acre, when the 

 same variety, on good potato soil, with good average manur- 

 ing and cultivation, will fail of yielding two hundred bushels. 

 The flavor and quality, by which latter word I more especially 

 mean dryness, should be up to such a standard as the Jackson 



