S^ Tlve Western Pomologist and Gardener. 1872 



a due proportion of food and water, combined in sucli due proportions as are most com- 

 patablc with its sound healtli and vigor. In dry seasons tlie water tlius held below the 

 roots, rises as the ground dries and the heat increases in sufficient quantities to answer all 

 the purposes of producing firm fruit and healthfulness of plant. Until a system of perma- 

 nent underdraining becomes well established throughout the whole land, success, in any 

 department of land products, will be very uncertain. AVith a system of general under- 

 draining success is the rule. Without it success is the exception. With thorough under- 

 draining mulching will be rendered quite unnecessary. Without it, it will be necessary 

 only in dry seasons. 



In closing this already too long a paper, we wish to enforce that water forms no part of 

 the nourishment of either animals or plants. It is simply and only the vehicle for con- 

 veying the nutritious particles to the various portions of the system where the glands of 

 assimilation appropriate the matter thus brought to them, each for its own peculiar pur- 

 pose. After it has thus performed this duty, the water becomes also the vehicle for 

 carrying those substances, no longer needed inside, and expels them to the outside, through 

 the lungs, the skin, the kidnies and the bowels in the animal, and through the leaves, the 

 bark and roots of the plant. Hence composition and decomposition are continually going 

 on in all organized bodies, water forming the vehicle in both building up and tearing 

 down. In proportion therefore as composition or decomposition shall be in the ascendant, 

 will the organization thrive or decline. 



Campbell's Late Rose Potato. 



By Geo. W. Campbell, Delaware, Ohio. 

 This new seedling potato was grown from a seed - ball of the Early Rose, and now 

 promises to be as valuable and popular as a late potato, as its wortliy parent has been for 

 an early one. It is a selection from a lot of fort)' seedlings of the same parentage, and has 

 not only proven more productive than any of its fellows, but more so than any other 

 variety within my knowledge. Some of the same lot of seedlings did not produce, in their 

 first year from the seed, more than half an ounce of very small tubers. A few did much 

 better, yielding two pounds and a - half of potatoes to the hill, some of the single tubers 

 reaching half a pound in weight. This was the largest yield of any single hill, with the 

 exception of the variety called Campbell's Late Rose. This produced, in the first year, 

 from a single seed, twenty handsome potatoes of marketable size, ranging in size from that 

 of a hen's egg to a weiglit of twelve ounces, the aggregate weighing six and a - half 

 pounds. Upon being tested by cooking, the quality was found excellent, and its wonder- 

 ful productiveness has continued unabated. The second year, about three pounds were 

 cut to single eyes and planted one eye in a hill, and produced one barrel of potatoes to 

 each pound planted. The past season it has produced, under favorable circumstances, 

 ■with only ordinary cultivation, three bushels from half a pound. Tested side by side with 

 Peerless, in a parallel row of the same length, and exactly the same treatment throughout 

 the season, Campbell's Late Rose gave four bushels, to one bushel and three pecks of 

 Peerless. 



Unfortunately, there are several other varieties offered to the public this season, under 

 the name of " Late Rose," which are not seedlings ; but accidental " sports," or variations 

 found among Early Rose potatoes. There are various opinions about these " sports." 

 Some persons think them valuable ; others think them entirely unreliable ; not permanent 

 in character, but liable to keep " sporting " no one knows where. The better opinion 

 seems to be that they are the result of some diseased or weakened condition of individual 

 plants of the Earlv Rose potato, which has retarded its ripening beyond its natural 

 period ; and that it is probably the first step towards that degeneracy and decay which seems 

 natural to the potato, and which has overtaken so many of our once popular and valuable 

 varieties. 



Campbell's Late Rose, as its name indicates, is a late variety, continuing its growth 

 through the entire season. Its late keeping qualities are also remarkable, keeping in 



