September 2 , 1880. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 208 
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Harpenden Horticultural Sh ow. 
3rd 
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4tli 
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5th 
Sun 
15th Sunday after Trinity. 
6 th 
M 
7th 
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Alexandra Palace Fruit Show closer. 
8 th 
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Wirral and Birkenhead Agricultural Sho w. 
MORE ABOUT POTATOES. 
SHOULD apologise, Messrs. Editors, for asking 
VsS y° u a ^ ow me to have my say also on the 
above subject did I not know that everyone 
who has the means of growing a few Potatoes 
has a lurking fondness for a chat about that 
most seductive and interesting vegetable. Few 
there are who have not some pet theory of their 
own about its culture, or some nostrum which ensures 
an abundant crop and freedom from disease. Almost 
every cottager one meets will, if you give him the 
chance, propound some deep theory about “ taties," and give 
you his “ 'pinion " as to the cause of the disease and his way 
of defeating the enemy. 
One of the mysteries connected with this cherished tuber 
is the power it has of affecting everyone who talks about it 
with the idea that he knows more about its ways and doings 
than any other living being. Do I not now begin to feel its 
subtile power working in me? For whereas I started with 
the thought, that although I had been a student in the Potato 
school for many years, my education was as far from complete 
as ever ; now I begin to fancy that I do know something 
after all. At all events I think I have proved the fallacy of 
many professedly infallible rules laid down from time to time 
by the would-be instructors in the art of Potato growing. 
A few weeks since I saw it propounded in this Journal by 
“ W. B. W.," that the way to obtain good crops and to avoid 
the disease is to select for seed the largest and best-shaped 
tubers only. I beg to submit that this is fallacy No. 1. 
Some years ago I was in the habit of regularly exhibiting 
Potatoes, and had the gratification of winning many first 
prizes at various shows. Thinking to continue my successes 
with more certainty and greater ease, I used at first to keep 
all my prize Potatoes for seed, adding to their number any 
others that I was able to select from my stock of equal size 
and merit. These were planted with extra care at double the 
usual distance, and I expected grand results. I can only say 
that in every case I was disappointed. The produce was 
generally inferior to that obtained from my medium-sized seed, 
and quite as liable to disease. The supposition that the largest 
Potatoes have eyes of a better constitution than smaller tubers 
is, I believe, also a fallacy. No one who has grown Potatoes 
long can have failed to observe, that in years when disease is 
rife it is nearly always the largest tubers that are first affected. 
Last year, an unusually bad one, I dug about half an acre of 
Snowflake in which every large Potato was diseased. Only a 
small proportion of the crop, and that consisting entirely of 
small and middle-sized Potatoes, escaped. Many a time 1 have 
had the rows overhauled to obtain exhibition specimens, and 
in bad seasons have been disgusted at finding all the finest 
touched with the abominable disease. My deduction, therefore, 
is quite the reverse of that of “ W. B. W." I find that size 
and weakness of constitution as a rule go together, and my 
advice is, Send your large Potatoes to market or eat them. Do 
not waste valuable food by putting it into the ground to rot, 
when you will get equally good if not better crops by planting 
sound, whole, or even cut sets of medium-sized Potatoes. 
Then, again, I see it constantly insisted upon as necessary to 
success “ Change your seed “ Get it from a distance if 
possible, and you will be repaid by double crops with greater 
immunity from disease." Now as far as my experience goes 
this is a mistaken notion. My advice is, If you have the 
chance save your own seed, and you will save your money too, 
and get a better crop into the bargain. “ But this is rank heresy," 
some will say. Well, it may be so ; but I can only add that 
for the last fifteen years I have purchased a quantity of seed, 
but never yet bought any as well saved as I can save it myself, 
nor any that gave me a better return in the way of a crop. I 
have now some Gloucestershire Kidneys (one of the very best 
earlies), which have been grown in and saved from the same 
ground for the last fourteen years, and their produce is this 
season quite equal to what it was originally ; nor is there 
any more tendency to disease than there was at first. In fact, 
in the worst seasons I have usually had them quite free 
from it. 
But when I say “ Save your own seed," I mean “ save it 
well." Let medium-sized tubers be carefully selected ; let them 
be carefully spread out in single layers, and the original 
sprouts carefully preserved. And does all this ward off disease ? 
No, by no means, but without doubt it mitigates its severity, 
and, above all, gives the crop a chance of being ripe and out 
of the ground before the pest appears. My experience coin¬ 
cides with that of Mr. Edward Luckhurst when he says that in 
the matter of disease we are at the mercy of the weather. It 
is simply a question of a wet or dry season. 
Like many others I have gone in largely for Scotch Cham¬ 
pions this season. I regret to say that my experience leads 
me to write myself among the fools for so doing. Not that I 
do not intend to try them again, for it is never fair to judge of 
anything finally from one season's trial. But at present I have 
several faults to find with them. First, they do not resist the 
disease as I was led to believe. On the contrary, my Cham¬ 
pions -were the first affected by it, and from them it spread to 
Snowflake in the same field. The disease is not of a bad type ; 
but still the point is, that they have broken down in what was 
said to be their great forte. On lifting there were more diseased 
tubers than under most of the other varieties grown here. 
Secondly, the haulm is too long. I think it a great mistake to 
grow Potatoes with such immense stalks as Champion and 
Magnum Bonum have, if it is possible to get a crop from any 
others. We cannot eat Potato stalks. But the stalks can and 
do scourge the ground most unmercifully, and eat out it a 
quantity of material out of all proportion to the useful part of 
the crop ; besides, they take up so much room. Thirdly, they 
produce a perfect wig of fibrous roots ; these added to the im¬ 
mense stalks make them hard to lift. Here they had to be cut 
off with a sickle like corn before the roots could be got at, and 
No. 10 .—Yol. I., Third Series. 
No. iscs. —Vox., lxiv., Old Sbribp. 
