VEGETABLE CULTIVATION DURING QUEEN VICTORIA'S REIGN. 389 



improvements effected in the Potato during Her Majesty's 

 reign, and as I have already in my paper on "Potatos" 

 (published in vol. xix. of the Journal of the Eoyal Horticultural 

 Society) dealt somewhat fully with this subject, I must content 

 myself now with the fewest possible remarks. As long ago as 

 1836 Messrs. Peter Lawson & Sons published a descriptive list 

 of 146 varieties, and amongst some forty-five of the principal of 

 these I only find one which is still widely grown, viz. the Early 

 Ashleaf. There are other familiar names such as Early Shaw 

 and Dons, but the remainder must have passed out of cultivation 

 at least twenty-five years ago. 



In 1852 the old Walnut-leaf Kidney, Early Oxford, Forty- 

 fold, and York Regent were grown — all varieties of real merit in 

 their day — but now seldom met with. That excellent Potato 

 Paterson's Victoria was widely cultivated up till 1880, but it 

 would be difficult now to find an acre of it true to name. The 

 fact that almost all these have disappeared from sight does not 

 of itself necessarily prove that they were worthless or even 

 inferior to others grown at the present time ; for it is generally 

 admitted that the majority of Potatos will not maintain their 

 full vigour of growth and constitution beyond a certain time, the 

 limit varying with each individual variety. This is not to be 

 wondered at when we remember that each year's growth is but 

 the prolongation of the life of the plant, which apparently had 

 completed its work when the haulm died the preceding autumn. 



At the same time I have no doubt whatever that even if we 

 could reproduce such old favourites as the Regent, Paterson's 

 Victoria, &c, in all their former excellence, and plant them by 

 the side of the best Potatos of to-day we should find that very 

 great progress had been made, not merely in productiveness and 

 power of withstanding disease, but also in flavour — a point in 

 which the older varieties are often supposed to have excelled. 

 We now have in Ringleader, A 1, Early Puritan, &c, first-early 

 forms which are ready for use long before the so-called early 

 Potatos of twenty-five years ago ; we have also several second- 

 earlies, as Beauty of Hebron, Supreme, Early Regent, and Windsor 

 Castle (fig. 101), which certainly were not equalled by any of the 

 older varieties in their own section. Whether these will still 

 retain their good qualities unimpaired twenty-five or fifty years 

 hence no one can say, though in all probability — as they them- 



