LESSONS FROM POTATO CONFERENCE. 113 
than others. ' King George,' for example — 5,540 acres of it were 
grown in Scotland in 1920, and only 2,327 in 1921. Some of the 
Dunbar men grew it in 1918-19-20, and I am sure they did not 
help the fine reputation their potatos had deservedly earned ! Mr. 
Chittenden sets out also in addition to these qualities demanded by 
the public, the desiderata of the growers, and winds up by saying that 
he thinks ' Great Scot ' most nearly approaches the grower's ideal 
of all our modern potatos. He points out that the same incentive 
to progress acted in Britain as in America after the great blight of 1845 
— old varieties were considered worn out, and great efforts were made 
to raise new ones resistant to Phytophthora — ' Scottish Champion ' 
and Magnum Bonum ' being fine examples of what was done. 
Mr. Chittenden did well to emphasize the work of Mr. A. W. 
Sutton, who collected and bred from all wild types of tuber-bearing 
Solanums, and proved that little hope lay along that line of work of 
evolving disease-resisting forms. 
Mr. Chittenden hopes the day is not far distant when one variety 
will have one name and one only, and claims that the Royal Horti- 
cultural Society has always been active in pointing out where two 
names had been given to the same thing : 
'tis a consummation 
Devoutly to be wished ; 
but I do not think it will ever be accomplished. We are told that 
attempts have been made to estimate the chemical composition of 
different varieties of potato, but no definite conclusions have been 
reached. Practical men must leave it at that, remembering that the 
scientists are busy, and may one day discover things that will help 
them in their work of selection. 
In conclusion Mr. Chittenden emphasizes the value of a change of 
seed, and no man can speak on this with greater authority, because he 
has passed through his hands and grown at Wisley thousands of 
samples from every quarter of the British Isles. On the question of 
immature seed, i.e. tubers lifted before they are ripe for seed, he has 
always failed with them to get results as good as those given by seed 
tubers procured from a moister climate than Surrey. 
Mr. William Robb, of the Scottish Plant Breeding Station, who was 
the late Dr. Wilson's assistant at St. Andrews, deserves to be listened 
to because he was associated with the Doctor in raising ' Rector,' 
• Templar,' ' The Bishop,' and ' Crusader ' ; but the work of the raiser 
does not come directly under the title of my subject to-day. Under 
the methods of cultivation practised to-day deterioration does take 
place, Mr. Robb truly says, and this invariably creates a demand for 
either new and vigorous varieties or selected and vigorous strains 
of those already in cultivation to take the place of those that are 
declining in vigour. To meet these demands raisers are faced with the 
problem among others of effecting the combination of two charac- 
teristics which, in a large measure, may be^rather difficult to combine 
