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IX. On raising new and early Varieties of the Potatoe. By 

 Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. F. R. €. #c. 



Read January 6, 1807. 



The Potatoe contributes to afford food to so large a 

 portion of the inhabitants of this country, that every im- 

 provement in its culture becomes an object of national 

 importance ; and thence I am induced to hope that the fol- 

 lowing communication may not be unacceptable to the Hor- 

 ticultural Society. 



Every person who has cultivated early varieties of this 

 plant, must have observed, that they never afford seeds, nor 

 even blossoms ; and that the only method of propagating 

 them is by dividing their tuberous roots : and experience has 

 sufficiently proved, that each variety, when it has been long 

 propagated, loses gradually some of those good qualities, 

 which it possessed in the earlier stages of its existence. 

 Dr. Hunter, in his Georgical Essays, I think, has limited 

 the duration of a variety, in a state of perfection, to about 

 fourteen years ; and probably, taking varieties in the aggre- 

 gate, and as the plant is generally cultivated, he is nearly 

 accurate. A good new variety of an early Potatoe is there- 

 fore considered a valuable acquisition by the person who has 

 cne good fortune to have raised it ; and as an early variety, 

 according to any mode of culture at present practised, can 



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