388 



BULLETIN No. 127. 



[August, 



sent potato plants and tubers having the same characteristics, and 

 which are indistinguishable, even to an expert potato buyer. In 

 some cases this has been due to the actual stealing of meritorious 

 varieties by unscrupulous dealers, who have put out the stock under 

 a different name, and given it a foothold by persistent advertising. 

 More often, however, the duplication has been done by potato fan- 

 ciers who are growing seedlings from naturally pollenized seed, and 

 who obtain similar strains which are saleable to seedsmen, as new 

 varieties for the single reason that they have been obtained from 

 seed. If the yield is fair, and the tuber is of a popular type, the 

 restless fancy of the American public for something new, gives a 

 ready, though temporary market for the stock from the new seed- 

 ling no matter if it is slightly inferior to its already established 

 prototype. I have seen at least twenty named varieties of the Car- 

 man No. 3 type (short-oval-flat with white skin) which were ab- 

 solutely indistinguishable in shape, color, and manner of growth, 

 and if the popularity of this type continues there will undoubtedly 

 be an annual addition to this list of names. 



Of real variations in varieties, productive efficiency or ability to 

 excel in crop production under like conditions of environment, is 

 the character of greatest importance at present to the grower. The 

 astonishing adaptability of some varieties as compared to others, 

 to certain soils and climates is shown in the following table from 

 varieties grown at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station 

 in 1906, on plots of poor but uniform soil with like treatment as 

 to planting, cultivation, fertilizers, etc. To what these differences 

 are due: whether there are many different elementary species in 

 $. tuberosum whose characters have been recombined into innumer- 

 able varieties by hybridization; or whether they are due merely to 

 desirable fluctuations that regress slowly because of bud propaga- 

 tion is unknown. , The fact of the differences remains. 



TABLE i. VARIATION OF VARIETIES IN PRODUCTIVENESS UNDER UNIFORM FIELD 



CONDITIONS 



