347 



POTATO DEVELOPMENT BY FARMERS AND 

 GARDENERS. 



The rapid development of potatoes from a small stock is of 

 special interest now, because during the past two years farmers 

 have discovered that, provided they can get a small stock of a 

 new variety possessing sufficient merit, they have at their com- 

 mand the means of making a larger return on a given capital 

 than has hitherto been regarded as possible. The large sums 

 of money made by developing the Northern Star potato are 

 certainly unprecedented in the annals of farming. Moreover, 

 those who have participated in this profitable work of 

 development have rendered a service to the potato-growing 

 community, as it has hastened the period when a great disease- 

 resisting variety can be obtainable by the general grower. 

 It will be three or four more years before the price of 

 this variety will fall low enough to be sold for culinary purposes, 

 but it would have been much longer had a special system of 

 development not been adopted. There are 1,200,000 acres of 

 potatoes grown in the United Kingdom — mostly with varieties 

 which readily succumb to disease, and therefore giving far less 

 profit than if they were sound. Anything, therefore, which 

 |i conduces to the more rapid development of disease-resisting 

 varieties must be for the good of the grower, and also for the 

 consumer. The strong disease-resisting powers of the Northern 

 Star have been clearly demonstrated in all parts of the country 

 J during the past two years, and the best proof of the regard in 

 j- which this variety is held is obtained from the fact that all the 

 largest growers have recognised the necessity of growing it. 

 ; The large amount of disease in the country has, of course, 

 : greatly emphasised the necessity for getting up a stock of new 

 1 varieties which possess disease-resisting properties in a marked 



