Page:Treatise on Cultivation of the Potato.djvu/55

 2em

,—My garden contains 3 roods. It is a deep rich soil, which is heavily manured every year, with farm-yard manure. Every spot of it lies to the sun. I have laboured it for eleven years, and every year my potatoes were badly diseased. The seed you sent me, I sowed in the middle of March, and planted them in drills, with farm-yard manure, in the beginning of May. I never had stronger, healthier, or more beautiful plants. They were the admiration of every one; they could scarcely believe they were from the seed of the first year, and I thought they were going to resist the disease altogether, but alas it made its appearance on the leaves; but not very rapidly, and the haulm did not decay away like that of the old potato. The greater part of them blossomed and produced some seed, but not much. I raised them at the end of November. I had from 16 to 32 tubers from each seed. Not more than one-eighth were diseased, and those very slightly. The disease was almost confined to one variety, which, when cut, has black streaks. Yours respectfully,

MARY M'FADDEN."

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—I sowed your seed in a garden sheltered by trees, where potatoes had been grown for the last 20 years, and with the half of the crop invariably bad. I transplanted the largest of the plants, and the produce amounted to about $3⁄4$ cwt. to the square perch; and what was singular, I hadn't a bad potato in the whole lot. I gave some of the plants to my neighbours, and they all report most favourably of them. Some of the plants blossomed, but none produced apples. Yours respectfully,

JAS. O'FLINN."

2em

—The potatoes from your seed are blue-red in colour; nearly all looking like an early variety, very small, but no disease. Seeds from Patterson's Victorias cropped rather better than yours, and are nearly all apparently the same kind as Patterson's. Yours very truly,

JOHN ROBERTS."

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,—In the middle of April I sowed your seed in drills