March  2,  1899. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
Fumigating  should  be  practised  occasicnally  even  when  no  traces 
of  green  fly  are  visible,  for  when  once  it  obtains  a  sure  footing  both 
the  health  and  beauty  of  the  plants  are  quickly  marred.  Feeding 
with  liquid  manures,  both  natural  and  chenrical,  should  be  regularly 
practised,  always  giving  such  in  a  greatly  diluted  form. 
The  beginning  of  March  is  soon  enough  to  sow  seeds  for  producing 
large  plants  in  9  and  10-inch  pots,  and  the  end  of  May  for  those 
intended  for  flowering  in  5  and  G-inch  ones. — 11.  D. 
HYIJlilD  POTATOES  — REPORTING  PROGRESS. 
In  your  issue  of  March  17th,  1898,  page  244, 1  gave  you  partictdarc 
as  to  how  wo  planted  out  my  “  Jubilee  ”  hybrid  Potatoes  in  1897. 
Their  features  were  carefully  noted,  and  the  scdected  tubers  from  them 
I  had  planted  out  last  mid-May.  Their  physiognomies  became  again 
watched,  and  the  foliage  kepi  peppered  with  the  anti-blight  powder. 
Thirty  of  them,  early  and  second  early,  were  seh  cted,  and  taken  up  in 
the  order  of  precociousness,  and  their  characteristics  for  form,  flesh, 
and  colour  noted  down.  I  have  ret^ined  seven  of  them  as  early  and 
six  second  early  varieties.  None  of  the  other  seventeen — which 
proved  very  late  rank  growers,  throwing  enormous  bunches  of  beriies. 
and  thus  proving  for  me  stamina,  but  the  paucity  and  appearance  if 
the  tubers,  to  a  practised  eye,  show  them  to  be  not  worth  keepin:', 
and  for  that  matter  I  do  not  care  to  introduce  any  more  late  sorts. 
I  have,  however,  in  every  likelihood  secured  what  I  want  with  this 
Fendleri  cross  in  early  and  second  earlies  ;  yet  they  do  net  even  now 
bear  sufficiently  close  “at  home.”  In  Dame  Nature’s  good  time  I 
could  correct  this  wandering  tendency,  and  I  find  also  to  dispose  of  a 
disagreeable  lingering  flavour,  always  f^ound  in  wildlings  more  or  less, 
and  also  gain  a  little  further  increase  in  size  for  uiiiversal  garden 
household  purposes,  albeit  Mrs.  Fcnn  says  the  representatives — 
allowing  of  course  for  the  camera  curtailments  shown  in  the  plati — 
are  quite  large  enough  for  her.  Nevertheless  you  will  allow  them  to 
be  a  “  triumjjhant ’’  march  over  those  two  diminutives  for  which  you 
bespoke  a  “report  progress”  on  page  3,  January  5th,  1893.  I  (iropose 
for  myself  in  the  future  to  persevere  only  in  this  way  with  wildlings 
from  new  latitudes,  as  I  consider  the  acme  of  perfection  for  tiie 
esculent  is  airi\el  at;  that  I  cannot  woik  any  further  improvement 
by  inteicrossing  with  the  original  siiccies  or  the  American  stiains 
accruing  Irom  those  of  Virginia,  Peru,  or  the  Andes. 
So  now  for  rny  last  comer,  “Solarium  Lulbo-castanium,  Duval 
(fJuadlajara  Old  Mexico),”  sent  to  me  by  my  old  correspomling 
American  friend,  Mr.  Pringle.  It  is  no  new  thing,  “  friendship  with 
Americans,”  with  me;  esto  ferpetua  with  us  all!  You  can  quote 
more  about  the  introduction  of  this  new  species,  if  you  thitdc 
necessary,  from  Mr.  Pringle’s  letter  on  page  244,  March  17ih,  1897. 
Suffice  it  for  me  to  show  the  growing  a[)pcarance  and  the  uplifted 
crop — .save  the  mark,  “crop” — by  photographs,  through  a  kind 
medium,  Mr.  Anderson,  the  same  ingenuous  youth  who  “took”  the 
Chrysanthemums.  You  will  perceive  the  foliage  to  be  unlike  any 
of  our  jiresent  edible  varieties.  Last  year  it  gave  its  blooms  frcini 
a  tuber,  the  onlv  one  liliputian  I  could  preserve.  la  the  former 
season  it  blossomed  from  the  seed  sent  to  me,  but  up  to  the  present 
it  refuses  to  become  cross-fertilised  with  my  domesticated  varieties; 
nevertheless,  with  the  twenty-four  years’  tussle  that  I  have  undergone 
with  the  Fendleri  from  New  Mexico,  I  do  not  intend  to  despair  of 
corKpiering  castanium  from  the  other  side  of  the  Gulf  of  North 
America — viz.,  if  I  can  maintain  a  fulcrum  to  arrive  at  an  evolution  of 
that  inexorable  law,  the  “survival  of  the  fittest.” 
I  fear,  though,  the  investigations  of  a  hybridiser  will  gain  him 
little  credit  in  connection  with  the  esculent,  if  1  may  judge  by  the 
papers  in  these  columns,  since  my  last  record  in  your  issue  of 
March  17th,  1898.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  will  nat  prevent  my 
customary  anxiety  to  give  you,  before  I  “  go  under,”  my  )iarticular 
experiments,  wh  ch  must  necessarily  at  first  prove  “small  Potatoes, 
and  few  in  a  hill,”  and  will  certainly  not  meet  the  ideas  of  those  large- 
minded  growers  who  say  they,  or  somebody  else,  can  produce  so  maty 
pjunds  from  a  single  tuber,  or  an  amazing  plurality  of  tons  per  acre, 
thus  hailing  Nemesis  to  quickly  fill  their  sacks  and  overstock  the 
markets  with  inferior  coarse  produce,  which — if  it  is  to  be  judged  of 
as  a  paragon  of  perfection  to  go  by — will  soon  render  for  the  growers 
very  little  profit  indeed  btcmse  of  the  over-abundance. 
However,  that  may  end,  within  the  last  twenty  5’eara  or  so.  Potato 
raisers,  by  crossing,  have  followed  in  such  yearnings  for  size  as  (o  offer 
a  fair  prospect  of  spoiling  the  esculent  for  all  purposes  excejding  the 
idea  of  filling  their  breeches  pockets,  or  for  prize  monej’.  Pelative  to 
flowers,  to  work  for  size  and  admiration  in  competition  can  do  no 
harm,  but  where  is  the  benefit  for  the  million  to  come  in  by  creating 
bloated  watery  Potatoes — for  is  not  the  human  system  composed  of 
three-quarter.s  water  already — and  then  to  cro.«8  with  these  again  to 
produce  larger  swollen  ol)esities  ?  A  few  years  ago,  as  I  was  as-sorting 
some  seedlings  in  the  bay  of  my  barn — one  variety  of  them  approaehed 
to  the  size  of  a  child’s  head — our  squire,  Major  Tboyts,  happenei  to 
1(13 
call  upon  me  about  some  parish  business,  and  expressed  his  astonish¬ 
ment  at  the  size  of  the  one  mentioned  above,  adding,  “  I  suppose  those 
are  for  the  Messrs.  Sutton’s  ?  ’’  “  No  ;  they  are  to  be  boiled  for  the 
pigs— exterminated — as  ‘delusions  and  snares.’  We  do  not  want  these 
monsters  continued  further  than  they  have  gone.” 
Agriculturists  have  gained  a  march  upon  us  here  by  the  extinguish¬ 
ing  of  the  mountainous  cattle  for  their  shows,  with  which  they  erst 
used  to  “astonish  the  natives.”  It  is  high  time  the  British  public 
should  be  more  considered  in  this  way  in  regard  to  their  vcgi  table 
food,  in  Potatoes  more  especially,  lor  they  take  their  place  next  only 
to  Wheat.  But  we  all  know,  or  at  least  we  read,  bow  the  last  and 
mo.st  advertised  are,  according  to  the  catalogues,  the  best.  Notwith¬ 
standing,  let  me,  if  you  can  allow  space,  say  somewhat  about  my  own 
productions,  which  I  have  tried  to  keep  to  the  fore,  in  regard  only 
for  substantial  subsistence.  They  are  the  Bubens,  Piembraiidt.=,  and 
Vandyks,  analogou.^ly  as  being  the  original  outcomes,  handed  down 
by  long  perseverance  in  cross-fertilising  from  the  best  bleed,  so  to 
speak,  of  our  good  old  English  van,  not  to  be  procured  now  for 
love  or  money;  and  these,  again  becoming  cross-pollen-fertilised  from 
the  choicest  American  sorts,  produced  for  me  the  best  Potatoes  in  the 
Fig.  32.— a  Characteristic  Picture  from  Mr.  Fenn. 
world.  Those  which  we  have  succeeding  them  are  after-interbred- 
cross  copies,  and  do  not  surpass  their  progenitors  for  support  or 
flavour  ;  giants  and  colo.-suses,  I  grant. 
Well,  I  never  had  a  better  yirld  from  mv  Potatoes  than  last 
season,  from  off  the  same  ground  too  where  1  have  cultivated — 
excepting  a  few  samples  of  recent  raising — them  from  the  con¬ 
secutive  seeds  for  twenty-three  years;  not  that  I  disapprove  of  a 
change  of  soil  or  seed,  just  the  contrary.  Again,  it  would  be 
impossible  for  me  to  obtain  a  transfer  of  tubers  in  their  integrity  of 
my  out-of-commerce  sorts ;  in  fact,  I  never  for  my  own  seed  let  it 
out  of  my  hands.  You  may  be  inquired  of,  “  How  do  I  manage, 
then,  to  cultivate  so  succo-sfully,  following  on  the  same  ground?” 
Answer:  Analogous  to  Beau  Brummel  and  his  “cravats.”  Trenching 
and  deep  cultivation  “is  the  man.”  I  never  care  about  expensive 
artificial  manures;  farmyard  manure,  soot  and  salt,  buint  debris,  old 
mortar,  ashes,  and  earth  closet  soil  as  I  can  procure  them  are  sufficient 
for  me. — Bobt.  Fenn. 
[We  reproduce  (fig.  32)  the  veteran’s  original  Pea-hke  tubers  from 
his  rf.  Fendleri  X,  with  the  progress  up  to  date  as  represented  in  the 
tubers  on  the  plate ;  also  the  inverted  Seakale  pot  in  which  he  grew 
them,  the  fork  with  which  he  dug  them,  and  the  1  ellowus  with  vvhich 
he  blew  the  disease  away  by  his  favourite  anti-blight.  The  writer,  as 
he  recently  state(^  has  “  just  struck  eighty-four.”  With  the  view  to 
future  improvements  it  will  bo  noted  ho  is  going  to  siait  de  novo 
with  the  “  wildlings.”  We  hope  he  nny  pass  into  history  as  the 
Potato  centenarian. 1 
