POTATO 



VEGETABLE GARDEN 



POTATO 1133 



but the curled and mossy leaved ones 

 should be grown in preference to the 

 plain leaved varieties. Fern cleaved, 

 Moss-Ourled, Mitchell's Matchless, and 

 Covent Garden Garnishing are among 



the best. There is a variety called Ham - 

 burg or Turnip-rooted Parsley, the roots 

 of virhioh are cut up and used for flavour- 

 ing soups, stews &e. 



G-roup IV.%-SoLANACEOus Crops 



POTATO (SoLANUM tuberosum). — It 

 is now upwards of 300 years since the 

 Potato was first introduced to Europe, 

 and although its introduction to England 

 is associated with Sir Walter Ealeigh and 

 the State of Virginia in N. America, the 

 wild plant is really a native of Chili and 

 Peru in South America. 



A glance at p. 687 will show that there 

 are several species of Solanum, some of 

 them very showy garden plants, but none 

 of them equals S. tuberosum in value 

 and importance in qualitiesnowrecognised 

 throughout the whole civilised world. 

 There are other tuberous varieties of 

 Solanum, such as S. Maglia, 8. Comm.er- 

 soni, and 8. etuberosum, which are more 

 or less edible. Efforts have been made, 

 chiefly by Messrs. Sutton of Beading, to 

 hybridise some of these, especially 8. 

 MagUa, with cultivated forms of the 

 Potato with a view to produce a disease- 

 resisting variety. So far, however, this 

 desirable object has not been attained, 

 and the tubers of 8. Maglia in some 

 seasons have proved as much subject to 

 disease as those of the ordinary Potato. 



Although belonging to a group of plants 

 which contains such poisonous members 

 as the Henbane and Deadly Nightshade, 

 the Potato ranks next to Wheat as an 

 article of human diet, and may be cooked 

 in a variety of ways. The great botanist 

 Linnseus, however, is reputed to have 

 placed the whole order Solanacese (p. 687) 

 under a ban for edible purposes, and he 

 never ate a Potato. The Scottish people 

 too are said to have resisted the introduc- 

 tion of the Potato as an article of diet 

 because it was not specifically mentioned 

 in the Bible, and they certainly undertook 

 its cultivation at a later period than the 

 people of England and Ireland. 



Propagation. — The Potato is a tuber, 

 and is therefore a stem swollen and modi- 

 fied, primarily to serve as a storehouse for 

 nutriment which has been manufactured 

 by the leaves, and drafted down the stems 

 in the course of the season's growth. 

 The examination of any Potato -plant in 



the growing season will clearly show that 

 all the roots spring from the stems, and 

 from these are given off the tubers. The 

 latter contain several ' eyes ' or buds when 

 mature, and from each of these eyes 

 springs a stem bearing leaves, flowers, 

 fruits, and seeds in due course when the 

 tuber is planted. 



Cutting the tubers. — If the Potato- 

 tuber is cut into pieces and each piece 

 contains an eye, it is sufficient to produce 

 a perfect plant with tubers in the course 

 of the season. Some gardeners favour 

 cutting the tubers into pieces before 

 planting, while others do not, on the score 

 that the cut surface may more readily be 

 attacked by disease (seep. 1136). There is 

 little or nothing in support of this argu- 

 ment, especially if the cut portions of the 

 tubers, or ' sets ' as they are called, are 

 allowed to dry before planting. On the 

 other hand experiments have proved that 

 a portion of a tuber with a good strong 

 eye or bud will yield as many good 

 Potatoes as an uncut one. And there is 

 no reason why it should not, when it is 

 remembered that all the tubers are the 

 direct result of the action of the leaves as 

 detailed at p. 34, and not of the tuber 

 which has been planted. In fact the 

 latter soon loses its plumpness, and 

 becomes a sticky mass. The reserve food 

 it contains undergoes a chemical change 

 in the soil and is absorbed by the sprout- 

 ing stem until the latter can develop new 

 roots of its own, to supply nourishment 

 from the soil in the same way as other 

 roots. 



The great ease with which the Potato 

 is increased by almost any portion of the 

 tuber with an eye is seen when even the 

 parings of the tubers have been planted 

 on suitable soil. 



Preparing the ' sets.' — The tubers 

 used for raising annual Potato crops are 

 usually the small but healthy ones unsuit- 

 able for cooking. They are commonly 

 knovm as ' seed ' Potatoes, but the real 

 seeds of course are contained only in the 

 green fruits, known in many parts as 



