November 23, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
461 
PERSEVERANCE WITH 
POTATOES. 
-X 
D uring the year 1885 we had the pleasure of inspecting the 
results of crossing one of the species of Potatoes described 
as Solanum Maglia with three good English varieties. This was 
at Reading, in the grounds of Messrs. Sutton & Sons, and in the 
same grounds we have had the pleasure of inspecting a no less 
remarkable and decidedly more promising output this autumn 
from a similarly conducted series of experiments. S. Maglia as 
the seed bearer and a seedling from Victoria as pollen parent 
crossed in 1887 produced two “hybrids,” one having reddish, 
pebble-shaped tubers with no particularly attractive character to 
recommend them, the other wholly different, the tubers being 
round, of full size, white, with a rough skin like Schoolmaster ; 
yet entirely distinct, unquestionably an interesting, and may prove 
a decidedly valuable acquisition. 
In the summer of 1891 the well-known variety Imperator, also 
another unnamed cultivated Potato, were pollenised from the 
small reddish tubered No. 1 hybrid ; also a commercial variety 
was pollenised from it as well. In the following year (1892) these 
hybrid Potato seedlings were remarkable for the number and size 
of the tubers they produced, and the present year’s crops were 
looked forward to with no ordinary degree of interest. Though 
the impress of the pollen parent was very apparent in the growth, 
which to coin a word was decidedly magliaised, yet the tubers 
from the red polleniser were white with one exception, a mottled 
round, five of the other varieties being white rounds, and six white 
kidneys. The yield from some of these was remarkable. For 
instance, though the tubers planted were of necessity small, yet 
eight of them (No. 5), a lemon fleshed kidney, produced 
33 lbs. 9 ozs. of extremely fine Potatoes ; six tubers of No. 8 
gave 17 lbs. 7 ozs. of mottled roundish tubers packed closely 
round the stem ; eight small seed tubers of No. 11 gave 
32 lbs. 2 ozs. of large white fleshed kidney Potatoes; and eight 
of No. 12 yielded 24 lbs. 3 ozs. of lemon fleshed full sized 
kidney-shaped tubers. Those four varieties appeared to stand 
out as the greatest producers from the twelve raised from the 
Imperator cross indicated—the red tubered variety as tbe pollen 
parent. 
From the other cross—an unnamed commercial variety— 
pollenised as above, twenty-nine seedlings were raised, nine of 
them producing kidney-shaped, and the remaining twenty round 
tubers—all, both round and kidney, being white. The diversity 
in yield was very great, some giving poor returns, several fair to 
good crops, and others again large yields, the heaviest, No. 11, 
white round, being 25 lbs. 14 ozs., from eight small tubers. As 
a rule the round varieties were the best in this cross, the kidneys 
in the other. ‘Also, as a rule, the crops possessed the characteristic 
strikingly apparent, of the tubers being thickly clustered, almost 
densely packed, close round the stems, and in this respect pre¬ 
sented an appearance wholly dissimilar from Potatoes generally as 
the seedlings were lifted and “ stood,” for it cannot be said they 
were “ spread,” on the ground. Most of them were of medium 
size, but to have obtained this size so quickly and the bulk of 
many so great augurs well for the future, for if the bountiful 
character of the best of them can be combined with the almost 
faultless form and superior quality of the best of our cultivated 
varieties, there will be added to existing good properties an 
No. 700.—Voii. XXVII., Third Seuies. 
abundance in yield to which they at present have no claim. 
Whether this combination can be effected and fixed time alone 
can tell. The vagaries of Potatoes produced by intercrossing 
cannot be foreseen, they have a habit of sliding back, quickly or 
slowly, also intermittently, and often provokingly, to nature so 
to say. Some appear to attain constancy in a comparatively short 
time, while others “sport about” for years. They may be to all 
appearance “ true ” one season, axd the next as uncertain as the 
weather—as “shifty,” as it has been humorously described, “as a 
waggonload of monkeys.” Tke one strong character of these 
seedlings, so strong that it ought to be retained, and exert a 
dominating influence on others, is the heaps of tubers packed and 
piled on each other, as if clinging together closely around, above, 
and below the parent set. 
This is a character not, we think, possessed by Solanum tube¬ 
rosum, the supposed progenitor of our present race of cultivated 
Potatoes. It may be so. Mr. Baker of Kew has no doubt about it, 
and he is a very great authority. At the same time, Heriot’s report 
of the country visited by Sir Walter Raleigh describes the Potato 
as growing there in “ damp places tubers as large as Walnuts, 
some much larger, and good for food either boiled or baked. This 
description would appear to apply more nearly to the coast plant 
Solanum Maglia than to the hill plant S. tuberosum, and Heriot 
was in the Raleigh Expedition when tubers were collected and 
brought to Ireland. It is certain, too, that anterior to the outbreak 
of the Potato disease in 1845 and in subsequent years, before 
endeavours were made to raise new varieties, that Potatoes were 
grown in fields and gardens in the north-eastern counties that had 
far greater resemblance to S. Maglia than S tuberosum ; also it is 
certain that during the years of failure of English crops that large 
cargoes of Potatoes from Belgium, Holland, and Germany to our 
eastern ports had the Maglia characters of peculiar rugged (con¬ 
tracted in places) shape, as well as the purplish red colour ; in 
fact, many of the tubers were so like Maglias that it would have 
taxed an expert to distinguish them from each other. But 
whether or not S. Maglia was once grown in England, and had a 
share in the production of English varieties, it is not to be 
found now among cultivators, and Messrs. Sutton & Sons have 
done well to obtain tubers from Kew for purposes of ferti¬ 
lisation in the hope of giving a more vigorous and consequently 
greater disease-resisting nature to stocks that may be raised from 
them, and possessing also the other good properties that invest the 
Potato with value as a commercial product and necessary article 
of diet. 
But why, it will naturally be asked, these Reading experiments 
de novo, since an elaborate series was conducted not many years ago ? 
Because there was a doubt as to identity of the species chosen, as we 
indicated at the time, pointing out that the variation in the tubers 
was clear enough for them to be separated into two sections differing 
in colour. In fact one of the plants sported and gave white tubers, 
while those of S. Maglia are as far from white as any tubers can be. 
The Reading firm, accurate and thorough in its undertakings, 
could not have the experiments rest on a doubt, and therefore set 
aside all the painstaking and time-consuming work, gaining 
nothing but—and this must be very valuable—information. Hence 
the new series and going back to the beginning, the experiments 
founded on fact and conducted with the same extreme care as it 
is possible to exercise in such work. Slow and delicate work it is, 
as may be understood by an example in routine. 
Three seeds obtained from the first 1887 cross were sown on 
March 5th, 1888, and the first plant appeared on April 2nd. On 
May 30th, one cutting was taken from a side shoot, and three 
rooted suckers removed, all potted singly. In August seven 
cuttings were taken, and the plants grown in pots. In May, 1889, 
there were established in pots from tubers, cuttings, and offshoots 
twenty-five plants, four being sent to Mr. Baker, Kew, the rest 
planted outdoors, and so increased from year to year, the hybrid 
No. 2356.— VoL. LXXXIX., Old Series. 
