174 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



account of his experiments which were very successful, the 

 public have been made acquainted with its merits and induced 

 to give it further trial. Indeed, it is mainly through the 

 gardening journals of London that we have obtained our 

 knowledge of the Dioscorea, the information in the French 

 journals, though more full, being for the most part not so 

 accessible to our cultivators. The continued success of the 

 French as well as English cultivators having awakened atten- 

 tion to the merits of this new vegetable, it is now much bet- 

 ter known, and will be far more generally planted the present 

 year than in the previous one, and no doubt with increased 

 results. 



It has been stated by some enthusiastic writers that the 

 Dioscorea is not only likely to be a valuable auxiliary, but 

 " entirely to supersede the potato," as an esculent vegetable. 

 This, however, we must respectfully doubt, — for, though the 

 potato, of late years, has proved a most uncertain crop on 

 account of the disease which attacks it so fatally, it is diffi- 

 cult to believe that there is any other root which will effect- 

 ually displace it. The Dioscorea will perhaps, as has been 

 stated, prove a most valuable auxiliary crop when the potato 

 may, as undoubtedly it often will, fail, and be esteemed by 

 some even preferable to it ; but to supersede the latter, is, we 

 think, not the destiny of the Chinese yam. 



It would, however, notwithstanding our great attachment 

 to a vegetable which has proved such a blessing to millions, 

 be a happy circumstance to know that our old favorite, now 

 apparently doomed by disease, almost beyond hope of recov- 

 ery, was to be replaced by another of more nutritious prop- 

 erties — of easier cultivation — more prolific in its produce, and 

 certain in its crop. A new vegetable, possessing all these 

 claims upon our attention, is certainly worthy of a full and 

 fair trial in order to ascertain its true merits, and should not 

 be overlooked and pronounced worthless because it is new. 

 Already we have seen some notices in our agricultural papers 

 that the Dioscorea is a native of a tropical climate, and there- 

 fore unfitted for our colder region. There is no truth in this, 

 and the least information would have prevented the dissemi- 



