ON POTATOES. 183 



ready to be taken from the soil in the end of August, or the beginning of 

 September ; so that the farmer might be allowed ample time to prepare 

 the same ground for a crop of wheat. I am now enabled to state, that 

 the success of the experiment has in both cases fully answered every 

 expectation that I had formed. 



The facts that I have stated in the paper above referred to, and more 

 fully in the Philosophical Transactions, are, I believe, sufficient to prove, 

 that the same fluid, or sap, gives existence alike to the tuber, and the 

 blossom and seeds, and that whenever a plant of the potato affords 

 either seeds or blossoms, a diminution of the crop of tubers, or an 

 increased expenditure of the riches of the soil, must necessarily take 

 place. It has also been proved by others, as well as myself, that the 

 crop of tubers is increased by destroying the fruit-stalks and immature 

 blossoms as soon as they appear, and I therefore conceived that consider- 

 able advantages would arise, if varieties of sufficiently luxuriant growth 

 and large produce, for general culture, could be formed, which would 

 never produce blossoms. 



I have since had the gratification to find that such are readily obtained, 

 by the means which I have detailed, and I am disposed to annex more 

 importance to the improvement of our most useful plants, than any 

 writer on agriculture has hitherto done; because whatever increased 

 value is thus added to the produce of the soil, is obtained without any 

 increased expence or labour, and therefore is just so much added to 

 individual and national wealth. 



j& I formerly supposed that all varieties of the potato, which ripened 

 early in the autumn, would necessarily vegetate early in the ensuing 

 spring, and could therefore be fit for use only during winter; but I have 

 found that the habit of acquiring maturity early in the autumn, is by no 

 means necessarily connected with the habit of vegetating early in the 

 spring ; and therefore by a proper selection of varieties, the season of 

 planting crops, for all purposes, may be extended from the beginning of 

 March, nearly to the middle of May, and each variety be committed to 

 the soil exactly at the most advantageous period. 



A variety, however, uhich does not vegetate till late in the spring, and 

 which ripens early in the autumn, cannot 1 conclude, particularly in dry 

 soils and seasons, afford so large a produce as one which vegetates more 

 early : I, nevertheless, obtained so large a crop from one which vegetates 

 remarkably late in the spring, and ripens rather early in the autumn, that 

 I was induced to ascertain, by weighing, to what the produce would have 

 amounted had the crop extended over an acre, and I found that it would 

 have been 21 tons, 11 cwt. 80 Ib. or 48,352 Ibs. 



