Regarding 



"early 1 ' 



potatoes. 



182 



The breeding of so-called "early" potatoes has received considerable 

 attention at Svalof. By "early" potatoes is commonly understood those 

 sorts the leaves and stems of which wither down and indicate an approaching 

 maturity of the tuber at a relatively early date. That such a conception of an 

 early potato sort may be quite misleading and faulty has been clearly set 

 forth by Lundberg in the following table: 



Relation between time of ripening and state of development of tubers. 



An examination of the above table will disclose the interesting fact that 

 the earliest maturing sorts do not necessarily produce usable tubers at the 

 earliest date. Thus Early Puritan, which is ten days later than Beauty oj 

 Hebron, is nevertheless shown to produce a larger proportion of usable 

 potatoes on the thirtieth of June than does the latter, although as time 

 advances the above condition gradually becomes reversed. The small 

 degree of relationship which exists between time of maturity and the date on 

 which a given sort is large enough to be used for cooking purposes is excep- 

 tionally well illustrated in the behaviour of the sorts Rose and Kaiserkrone. 

 Although these two sorts mature at the same time the former occupies fourth 

 place as regards the usability of its tubers on June 30th, while the latter 

 stands almost at the foot of the list, viz., fifteenth, at this date. Experience 

 at Svalof thus far seems to indicate that the problem of producing early sorts 

 possessing desirable characters seems to be associated with greater difficulties 

 than is the case with later sorts. 



