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XXXV. On Potatoes. % Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. 

 F. R. S. $c. 



Read February 6, 1810. 



In the Horticultural Transactions, page 58, I have de- 

 described a method of cultivating early varieties of the Pota- 

 toe, by which any of those, which do not usually blossom, 

 may be made to produce seeds, and thus afford the means 

 of obtaining many other early varieties. I also offered a 

 conjecture, that varieties of moderately early habits, and 

 luxuriant growth, might be formed, which would be found 

 well adapted to field-culture, and be ready to be taken from 

 the soil in the end of August, or the beginning of Septem- 

 ber; so that the farmer might be allowed ample time to 

 prepare the same ground for a crop of wheat. I am now 

 enabled to state, that the success of the experiment has 

 in both cases fully answered every expectation that I had 

 formed. 



The facts that I have stated in the paper above referred 

 to, and more fully in the Philosophical Transactions, are, I 

 believe, sufficient to prove, that the same fluid, or sap, 

 gives existence alike to the tuber, and the blossom and 

 seeds, and that whenever a plant of the Potaloe affords 

 either seeds or blossoms, a diminution of the crop of tu- 

 bers, or an increased expenditure of the riches of the soil, 



