VEGETABLES POTATO. 271 



Stations, in a recent report on experiments made with 

 Potatoes, gave it as his opinion that by continually 

 selecting the best tubers, a variety could be permanently 

 improved. Believing this to be an error which should 

 not go forth unchallenged from such an authority, I 

 take the liberty, at the risk of a slight digression, to give 

 a few facts which argue against the belief, published by 

 me in an agricultural journal in 1885, under the head 

 of "Do Plants Vary when Propagated by Cuttings?" 

 On reading what is said about "seed" Potatoes, I notice 

 the assertion is made that "seed" taken from the most 

 productive hills gave a larger yield of tubers than that 

 taken from the least productive. I am inclined to 

 believe that further experiments will show that this in- 

 creased productiveness will not continue to hold, because 

 the reason for the greater or less yield was probably only 

 an accident of circumstances specially favorable condi- 

 tions of the set made to form the hill, or by being highly 

 fertilized, or some such cause that gave it this tempo- 

 rary advantage and that the chances are all against any 

 permanent improvement being made by such selections. 



The Potato is said to have been introduced into 

 Europe in 1584. If the original tubers had had the 

 highest cultivation that the skill of man could give, it is 

 exceedingly doubtful if 300 years of culture would have 

 changed them in the slightest degree, if propagation had 

 been solely from the tubers, and not from seed proper. 



I base this opinion on a very extended experience in 

 the cultivation of plants from cuttings. Strawberry 

 plants taken from any well known kind, such as Sharp- 

 less, for example, from strong, vigorous growing plants, 

 will certainly give better results than from weak plants 

 of the same kind planted in the same soil. But if the 

 progeny of the strong and the weak plants are again 

 taken and replanted, the difference between the two would 

 hardly *be perceptible after they had been growing to- 



