POTATOES.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 251, 23 September 1865, Page 3

POTATOES.

(Continued from our last) To generalise from these results it wouM seem that small sets caunoti produce sucsi a vigor of growtn as to fully devclope the potato-bearing capabilities of the soil. I believe that potato sets are rarely planted of much more than 2ozs in weight; 4oz sets are most certainly the exception; so that as a rule the potato crop is starved from an insufficient vigor in the set. This question is in no way related to that of thin seeding. The distance at which the sets should be placed is another matter, upon which I will not now enter, excepting to observe that when small sets are planted they are not put nearly thick enough in the rows. My experiments "prove that the ground is capable of bearing a much greater weight of tubers than can be generated from 2oz or even 4oz sets planted a foot apart, and 1 believe that such small sets, if placed at 6-inch or 8-inch intervals, would produce nearly as much to the root as if at the wider distance, and, of course, a much greater weight per acre; but upon this point I hope to experiment during auother season. What I now wish to establish is, that the produce of the crop depends much more than ordinary practice would seem to admit on the size and vigor of the original sets. Small potatoes are diminutive in all their parts; the eyes are proportionably small, and cannot produce such strong shoots as full-sized tubers. All the Soz sets I planted appeared above ground with remarkably strong and vigorous shuots, which maintained their superiority over those from the smaller sets throughout the whole period of growth, and no one who saw their splendid tops—nearly double the height of the others—could tor a moment doubt what the result would be at the harvest.

I believe the mere question of inherited character has much to do with the extremely various weights produced from the different sized sets. Mr Darwin has shown how almost any quality can be established by the selection of individuals tending in a particular direction, and Mr Hallet has actually produce a race of long-eared wheat by the simple process of selecting the longest ears and largest grains for three or four generations. If it were possible—as in the case of Hallet's wheat—to select the finest individual seeds for every sowing, a certain and permanent improvement in our crops must inevitably be the result, but with small seeds sown over such large areas this is practically impossible at every generation, so that the weak and the strong must to a certain extent be perpetuated together. With potatoes however nothing is easier than to select the largest tubers for planting. If the generation is to be conveyed through the smallest individuals of the crop, the gradual diminution of the produce is a matter of certainty, but if the potato were treated like live-stock, and the finest individuals only allowed to generate, its gradual but permanent improvement on the theory of inheritance would be as certain, and the immediate increase of the crop could not but leave a rich profit over the extra weight of potatoes planted. This is a very simple matter of experience, which anyone who has a garden can prove at a very little or no expense, by planting a number of potatoes of various weights and noticing whether the larger potatoes do not, produce an excess of crop over the small sets vastly greater than the extra weight of the set planted.—' Launceston Examiner.'

Beyond the trade with the West Coast (the < Nelson Examiner' remarks) the goldfields have not otherwise perceptibly benefitted Nelson. They have in no degree, as yet, increased the value of property, either in town or country; but we are glad to find that they are stimulating our farmers to increase their productions, as a certain and highly remunerative market is insured to them. The following is an extract from General Cameron's speech at a public dinner given him in Sydney:—" I cannot flatter myself that my military career has been so distinguished as to deserve so great an honor as the praise you have bestowed upon me. It is true I have served her Majesty and her Royal predecessors more than forty years ; but the only wars in which I have been engaged are the Crimean war and the war in New Zealand. In the former of these wars I had the honor of serving under one of the noblest soldiers in the British army—the late Lord Clyde, then Sir Colin Campbell. As I had the benefit of his example and advice, I claim little merit to myself for the successes of the troops under my command in that war. As for the war in New Zealand, all I say is that the conduct of a war in such a country is attended with gp.-at difficulties, especially when the general officer in command of the troops has to conform to the views of others, sometimes not in unison with his own. He acts under disadvantages to which, in ordinary war, he would not be suTject. I regret exceedingly that circumstances compelled me to leave that colony before the rebellion was completely put down. But I think people of this colony are under a mistake in regard to New Zealand—that they take too gloomy a view of the affairs of that colony. My own opinion is, looking at the state of affairs when 1 left, locking at the submission of several principal chiefs, and at the desire for peace manifested, that the troubles of that colony will v§ry soon come to an end.'