POTATO IMPROVEMENTS. 



changed and become old and incapable of extracting from Apples 

 that delight found in the greenest fruit half a century since. 

 That is, I believe, very much the case with those who condemn 

 the Potato of to-day when compared with those of earlier years. 

 The Potato really has improved — the eaters of them have become 

 less capable of appreciating them. 



Then there has been no inconsiderable improvement in form 

 and beauty. Those who saw, and, having seen, remember the 

 singularly beautiful tubers shown at the various exhibitions held 

 under the auspices of the International Potato Show Committee, 

 must in all honesty admit that in development of form wonders 

 have been worked during the past twenty -five years. To aver 

 that under the influence of those shows Potatoes reached 

 absolutely the perfection of form in their respective sections is 

 to speak a truism, and, as a consequence, the Committee, having 

 accomplished all that was possible, retired from its labours 

 satisfied with its results. " But," exclaims the Potato pessimist, 

 " beauty of form and smoothness of skin is no evidence of 

 quality ! " Perhaps not ; but, on the other hand, neither is 

 ugliness. If we have had some beautiful Potatoes of bad quality, 

 we have also had myriads of good ones, and the efforts of the 

 International Committee were specially directed to the elimination 

 of the bad and the expansion of the good, not only at the Crystal 

 Palace, but through the kindness of the Koyal Horticultural 

 Society in these gardens also. Form and beauty, beyond satis- 

 fying the requirements of the cultivators of refined tastes, have 

 become marketable commodities also, for the handsomest samples 

 always secure the best prices. 



One of the chief factors in Potato development during the 

 time previously named, however, was found in the intro- 

 duction of American varieties. These came to us in myriads, 

 generally characterised by similarity of appearance, but varying, 

 perhaps, in colour. All were remarkable croppers, and if few 

 possessed high quality or flavour, yet all did materially help to 

 swell our Potato supplies. How many of these varieties, intro- 

 duced at the time with much flourish of trumpets, have now gone 

 to the eternal Potato bourne our lists of to-day will serve to show. 

 Just one or two remain to us in their natural form and goodness, 

 chief amongst which is the favourite Beauty of Hebron ; the 

 best, perhaps, as it has been the most permanent, of all the 



