Page:Treatise on Cultivation of the Potato.djvu/22

 blossoms is the preternaturally early disposition of the plant to generate its tuberous roots. The early varieties are of dwarfish growth, and therefore improper for extensive field culture; but I have found that by cross-breeding between those and varieties of tall and luxuriant growth, I can communicate to the latter the habit of producing tubers only, without blossom; with, I have reason to hope, considerable advantages. I now possess a good many of such varieties, selected from a very great number, which prove totally worthless; but many of those varieties which do not produce blossoms, have other defects, which render them of little value. The stems of some of these are not strong and rigid enough to support themselves and their foliage; and they are consequently beaten down by rain and winds. The foliage of one stem consequently often becomes so placed as to shade the foliage of another; and as the whole material of the tubers is formed of living matter, which is generated in the leaves only, and as all leaves which are shaded become inefficient and useless, a sufficient degree of strength and rigidity in the stems to enable them to retain their foliage in its first position is very important; though I believe that this circumstance has not hitherto attracted the attention of any cultivator of the potato.

The tubers of other varieties, which were in all other respects apparently good, were defective in specific gravity, and consequently aqueous and worthless; and in others, veins of a red colour extended in to the body of the tubers, and gave an unpleasant colour to their meal, which was in some other respects of very good quality. But I have obtained several varieties which do not blossom, and which are, as far as I am at present capable of judging, without any particular defect; though I am far from thinking I possess any variety which has even approximated to the greatest state of perfection which the species is capable of attaining.

I have succeeded in obtaining, as I wished, some varieties which vegetate early, and others late, in the spring. Those of the first-mentioned habit will generally be found to afford the largest produce by having the advantages of a longer summer; but it is desirable to possess varieties of less excitable habits, because such usually remain good till a later period in the spring, when good vegetables are not always readily obtainable. I have also succeeded in obtaining varieties which do not vegetate till late in the