THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



523 



correspond to the new or grafted sort, but 

 the roots of that tree, though fed with nu- 

 triment from the leaf of the superior sort, 

 will yet throw up Damson sprouts, showing 

 that the root is unchangeably Damson. 



3. Now plant a Carter and Kidney po- 

 tato in the same hill ; each tuber will throw 

 up a top of its own kind. The blossoms 

 may pioduce cross impregnations, and 

 the balls so produced may yield new varie- 

 ties, showing a cross between the two sorts, 

 but the roots of each plant and the tubers | 

 produced upon them, will be true to their; 

 own sort. The tubers of perennial trees, 

 are not seeds nor anything else indicating 

 a new sort. 



4. Nor can mere juxta-position produce 

 a cross. If the same large apple tree, 

 grafted with fifty varieties of apples, will 

 yet produce fifty sorts of apples, though 

 drawin«: its nutriment from the same soil 

 and through one body, and presume these 

 fifty sorts growing side by sid.^, and with 

 branches intertwined, through any number 

 of years, then surely two different trees, 

 growing side by side, will produce regular- 

 ly each its own kind of fruit. 



5. Now a potato planted in the spring 

 is like the piece of a root of the tree, or 

 like a graft — it has the elements of sort in 

 itself unchangeably. If it were not so, 

 we should have security for the perma- 

 nence of quality in any fruit, tuber or blos- 

 som. Every seedling plant, in its very 

 origin, or at least in that and the circum- 

 stance of its culture for the first few years, 

 acquires a stereotyped character which it 

 never loses while remaining in that soil 

 and climate, nor will its essential and spe- 

 cific qualities be lost even when removed 

 to another soil and climate. 



n. Reasons from Experience. 



1. I have been raising seedling potatoes 

 by the thousand during the last eisht years. 

 Many of them in favorable years, as 1852 

 and 18.55, produced balls the year of their 

 organization. Many of these sorts have 

 been cultivated side by side, and some- 

 times in the same hill, four or five years, 

 i. e., until I could judge of their value. 

 Yet I have never found a sort that varied 

 in its practical characteristics, such as 

 shape of leaf and vine, color of leaf and 

 flower, and color both external and inter- 

 nal, of tuber after the first year. It is 



only in shape of tuber that I have found 

 them to vary. 



2. I have numerous sorts that have been 

 cross-impregnated. Thus in 1851, I had 

 a cross between a seedling of 1849, called 

 the Empire State, and the New Jersey 

 Black Yam. The result was that variety 

 since given out under the name of Black, 

 Diamond. So also in 1852, I had a cross 

 between the Early Mountain June and 

 a blue variety, which resulted in the sort 

 named the Mountain June Pink eye. But 

 in neither case did the varieties beaiing 

 the balls, i. e., the Empire State and the 

 Early Mountain June, show any change 

 in their tubers. 



3. Variety in soil, culture and season, 

 one or all, may make slight changes in the 

 flesh, degree of color, both external and 

 internal, and in the smoothness of the 

 skin, but these changes are not essential 

 or permanent. Thus both the Summer 

 and the Winter Pink eye will often show 

 hills that differ from each other in the 

 amount of purple stripes on the tubers, 

 nay, the tubers of the same hill will differ 

 from each other. So the Western Red 

 varies in depth of color with soil and sea- 

 son. 



4. Some varieties are never fixed in 

 color. 1 imported a variety from South 

 America, in 1851, which was almost uni- 

 formly white, though the same hill would 

 occasionally show one tuber with a bright 

 purple stripe, or even small speck. I fre- 

 quently find this same feature of varying 

 color among my new seedlings, both exter- 

 nally and internally. 



From all these considerations, both of 

 philosophy and fact, I am constrained to 

 conclude that the color or other sensible 

 qualities of the potato, are incapable of 

 change by being planted together, and 

 hence that facts that seem to favor such a 

 conclusion have not been accurately exam- 

 ined. C. E. Goodrich. 



From the Northwestern Farmer. 



Preserving Fence Posts— Striped Bugs. 



Eds. Northwestern Farmer : — The 

 time is fast approaching when farmers will 

 be engaged in building, and rebuilding, 

 fences. As the plank and wire fence is 

 takina the place of the old zig zag rail 

 protector^ I ask a space in your Monthly 

 Visitor to give my experience in setting 



