February 7, 1884. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
99 
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COMING EVENTS 
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Royal Society at 4.30 P.M. 
Quekett Club at 8 P.M. 
Royal Botanic Society at 3.45 P.M. 
Septuagesima. 
Royal Horticultural Society, Fruit and Floral Committees at 11 A.M.; 
Society of Arts at 8 P.M. [Annual Meeting at S r.M. 
LOOKING BACK. 
[E labours of cultivators and bybridisers have 
been devoted to improving the wrong Potato.” 
Gad zooks, sir! and now after a tolerable 
life’s work in striving to improve our chief 
esculent, Solanum tuberosum, what can I say 
in answer as I read the above extract at page 
58 ? The “ if,” at any rate, may be read large 
at the beginning of the paragraph. It was only 
the other day, at a committee dinner at the 
Crystal Palace, whilst conversing with my friend Mr. Douglas 
about Potatoes, I said I had “ run to the end of my tether,” 
and done what I set myself to do from the beginning—crossed 
and handed down the concentrated blood, so to speak, of all 
the best of our good old English kinds, and of late years 
re-crossed again with the best of the new American sorts, 
till I have achieved to disease-resisting varieties as near as 
may be, with early proclivities, good bearing and keeping 
properties, and to flavour all that can be desired; and lo ! 
just as I am resting on my oars, and consoling myself upon 
having set my footprint upon the sands of time, I read your 
leader, which tells me of a Potato that has been lying perdu, 
at Chiswick and Kew to prove that we have all along been 
wrong! But—I have allowed you the “if”—it has yet to 
be proved that this S. Maglia will cross with S. tuberosum. 
I hope it will, as it will relieve us from sighing for “ new ” 
Potato “worlds to conquer.” It is just the ground we must 
start afresh upon ; but it is not exactly new to me, as I tried 
for four consecutive years to cross S. Fendleri, a New Mexican 
species, with our English varieties and failed, which gives me 
reason to say that we must not reckon too surely upon S. 
Maglia. I not only failed myself in crossing S. Fendleri or 
inducing it to seed, but it proved also unmanageable with a 
gentleman (a correspondent, I believe, of Mr. Baker) in 
America, and I think it may prove interesting for your 
practical readers if I resuscitate some letters with my 
answers immediately treating upon the subject. 
“Charlotte, Vermont, O.S.A., January 5th, 187G. 
“ To Mr. Fenn,—I t seems desirable that I should employ your 
beautiful and excellent seedlings to give to our strong-growing American 
sorts finer quality and flavour; and probably, if there may be any 
object in doing so, you might on the other hand, by an infusion of 
American blood into some of your seedlings, increase their yield, without, 
it is to be hoped, materially impairing their high quality. 
“ Twenty years ago there was little disparity, as I suppose, between 
English and American Potatoes. The majority of the varieties which we 
now employ, or certainly those which are grown most extensively, have 
originated since that time, and have descended from semi-domesticated 
varieties imported from South America. Thus from such an one Mr. 
Goodrich got the Garnet Chili; from the Garnet Chili Mr. Breese raised 
his seedlings, the Early Rose, Peerless, Breese’s Prolific, &c. ; and, 
impregnating the Early Rose with pollen from the best of the old sorts, I 
obtained the Snowflake, Alpha, and Ruby. 
“ The advance made from generation to generation in this line by 
such a course of seeding is very marked, and gives ground to hope that if 
the work be continued, especially if in the manner I have suggested, we 
shall ere long attain to perfect results, possessing ourselves of varieties 
which will combine high quality and fine appearance with satisfactory 
vigour and productiveness. 
“ I have named and put in commerce only the three seedlings 
No. 189.— Vol. VIII., Third Series. 
7 
th 
8 
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9 
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SUN 
11 
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13 
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mentioned above. They have been selected from many hundreds. The 
first and second you may possibly possess ; the third is only to be sent 
out for the first time this year, though it was at the International Exhibi¬ 
tion at Alexandra Palace, and with others received a certificate of merit. 
Besides this, I have many seedlings raised last summer, some of which 
are of very fair promise. Any of these (and a packet of the hybridised 
seed which I shall sow the coming season, should you care for it) I will 
be glad to send you in exchange for a selection of your favourites, such 
by preference as will furnish good pollen. The pollen of nearly all our 
newer American sorts is utterly ineffective (with the Snowflake sterility 
carried so far that the flower buds very rarely open, but fall away 
early), so that it is only as seed-bearers that they can be employed in 
cross-breeding. 
“ Hybridisation of species has been one of my aims. Besides 
the original species from the Andes, Solanum tuberosum, I culti¬ 
vate one very distinct from our western territory of New Mexico, 
S. Fendleri. As yet all my pains taken to impregnate it with pollen of 
the cultivated species has proved unavailing, though partially developed 
fruits have followed my operations, only to fall away, however, before 
maturity. When I learn the conditions which the plant requires and 
more fully meet them, I shall succeed, doubtless, I think I have given 
the real cause of my failure, because the plant is unable to set its own 
fruits with me. 
“ Peru can furnish us still another species, S. montanum (vide ‘ Bot, 
Mag.’), and I am very desirous to obtain it.—I remain, yours sincerely 
C. G. Pringle.’’ 
“January 27th, 1876. 
“ To Mr. PRINGLE,—I seem already to have entered into your ideas con¬ 
cerning the minglings of blood of English and American kinds. For three 
years consecutively, though as yet ineffectually, I have tried to cross my 
Rector of Woodstock seedling with your Snowflake, as being the very 
best of the American varieties yet sent over to us. Snowflake refuses to 
produce me a globule of pollen or to become impregnated. For the latter 
I do not care, as I desire your seedling to become the male parent, in order 
more certainly to infuse productiveness; Snowflake refuses in toto. This 
also has been the case with the other American varieties, till this season a 
stool of that shy bloomer Willard’s Seedling threw a stalk of flowers, and 
to my great satisfaction gave me some pollen upon my thumb nail. I 
immediately applied the dust to the pistils of three prepared florets of my 
seedling Bountiful, and in a few days I had the inexpressible satisfaction 
to find impregnation complete, and the berries sturdily swelling. 
“ Again, three years ago, after applying the pollen of Bountiful to some 
hundreds of pistils on the blossoms of the American Late Rose, I was in 
despair till two farewell bunches of flowers appeared in the row, when as 
a last resource I again applied the pollen of Bountiful, and perseverance 
gave me five impregnated berries. This circumstance revived my hopes 
in Snowflake, and I intend through this season to watch for her tardiest 
flowers, and so on to try and achieve successful impregnation with Rector 
of Woodstock. I sowed the seed of the above international crosses, and I 
have now by me 400 seedlings verging from dark red though every inter¬ 
mediate shade up to pearl white, and from perfect rounds to the handsomest 
types of kidneys—no eyes to be seen upon the majority of them—a more 
promising batch of seedlings I have never raised. Now, if in my object 
I shall have infused English flavour, and maintained the superior cropping 
qualities of the American varieties, I shall have fore-wrought-out your 
suggestions in the second paragraph of your letter. May it prove so ! 
(Mem., 1884, it has). 
“ Twenty years ago Potatoes were “ much of a muchness,” both here 
and with you. Nearly as long ago I crossed our old red Regent, with a 
transatlantic sort called the American Black Kidney. This, my first 
artificial cross, proved very prolific, but of no use, not one of the 500 
progeny was equal in flavour to the male parent, the Regent. One of the 
seedlings became a favourite with the cottagers about here (mem., 1884,1 
then resided at Woodstock), and another I kept as a breeder for good foim, 
though with a bad internal stain, which it persists in handing down to 
posterity. I will send you a few of both, though not for distribution,, 
merely to show you the result of a new idea wrought out long ago, and 
what came of it. There is, however, a variety lately come into com¬ 
merce here called Blanchard, certificated by our Royal Horticultural 
Society, which very nearly indeed resembles my Purple Blush, the Anglo- 
American cross first mentioned. The other I call Cricket Ball; perhaps in 
your soil the internal stain may disappear. At any rate, you will see I 
have begun to cross-breed again with your new semi-domesticated varieties, 
and because of their differing from your old sorts I feel almost certain 
of attaining to better results, and thus exhaust the purport of your third 
and fourth paragraph*. 
“ I observed your new seedling, Ruby, at our International Exhibition^ 
but I abide by Snowflake, as I want to get a good white cross from it. 
Let me beg to propose for you and me to work in concert thus :—Cross 
Snowflake with Rector of Woodstock, and vice versd, if you can. Cross 
Bountiful with Willard’s Seedling, using the latter for the male parent 
only. With Snowflake cross Rector of Woodstock, and we shall be both 
aiming at the same results for after comparison, and for certain comparative 
results, by your adopting the latter procedure with the two others which I 
have accomplished. Then we shall be able to decide, without further 
beating about the bush, on which side of the Atlantic a real improvement 
lies. This will do for the present I think. In regard to your fourth 
paragraph, as I dare not for conscience sake request more of you, when I 
read of “ those others” of the Andes and New Mexico that you propose 
to test, I must rest on my present oars for a year or two, as I have 
No. 1845.— Vol. LXX., Old Series 
