KITCHEN-GARDEN VEGETABLES. 
the perpetuation, unmixed, of any given variety. 
Frequently the tubers of an ordinary crop, 
which are too small for market, are kept back 
for planting, and dignified with the title “Seed 
Potatoes”. 
I need scarcely remind you that Potatoes 
are mere enlargements of underground stems, 
shortened and thickened, in which starch is 
stored up in smaller or larger proportion ac- 
cording to the characteristics of the several 
varieties. Like other underground stems, 
the tubers possess buds or eyes, from which, 
by fresh shoots, the plant is capable of re- 
development ; and although the tubers may be 
preserved through the winter for planting 
again in the following spring, they are neither 
more nor less than portions of the plant 
which died down and apparently ceased to 
exist in the previous autumn. Hence the life 
of a single Potato plant may be prolonged 
year after year until through weakness or 
deterioration it comes toanend. It will there- 
fore be obvious that improvement by selec- 
tion of the tubers is impracticable. Anyone 
can demonstrate this by planting a tuber 
which from any cause may be misshapen. The 
produce will revert to the uniform type of the 
variety to which it belongs. The only modi- 
fication of this rule I am acquainted with is in 
the cases where all the tubers of one plant 
show a uniform divergence in character, either 
for better or worse. 
sible that, by the selection of all or any of these 
tubers, a slightly different Potato might result, 
as in the case of some types of the Ashleaf 
section, which are dwarfer and more compact, 
or else taller and coarser-growing, than others. 
Outside the Ashleaf class, however, | know of 
no such instances. A really first-class seedling 
Potato is not liable to degenerate so quickly as 
is generally supposed. If degeneration sets in 
soon after its introduction, it merely proves that 
the variety is one which ought never to have 
been brought to public notice. 
Raising Seedlings.—Potato seeds, on the other 
hand, are formed in the Potato berries which 
some, though not all, varieties of Potatoes bear 
freely (fig. 1253). A berry may contain from 
100 to 300 seeds, the average of five berries 
examined being 232, and as the parent pliant 
appears able to control but slightly the distinc- 
tive character of its progeny, and as all the 
different seeds from one berry may produce 
plants differing from one another, not only in 
form, but many of them in colour also, it is 
here we find the great possibilities for improv- 
489 
ing the race by selection of the better seed- 
lings. Even if no cross-fertilization of flowers 
was attempted, great improvement might be 
made by the selection of the most promising 
Tig. 1254.—Potato Seedling. 
seedlings during the first few years of their 
When this is so it is pos- 
existence; but where judicious crossing of the 
best-known varieties is undertaken we can in 
a great measure combine in some of the result- 
ing seedlings the merits of both male and female 
parents, although even then no two seedlings 
from the same berry may be exactly alike. 
Those who attempt to raise seedling Potatoes 
must possess patience. Like many other species 
which are not habitually multiplied by seed, 
the Potato has a remarkable tendency to revert 
to the wild form. It may be necessary to culti- 
vate 100, or even 1000 seedlings, before finding 
one which is really worthy of a place amongst 
the better varieties already existing. M. Vil- 
morin says that in France the raising of seed 
Potatoes has been proceeded with in a some- 
what hap-hazard manner; whereas in England, 
on the other hand, a more systematic method 
has been followed, richness in starch, excellence 
of flavour, power of resisting disease, with little 
tendency to develop haulm, being the characters 
we on this side the Channel generally seek. 
Unfortunately, he says, they are not always 
able to profit in France by progress realized in 
England, because the French have a marked 
