The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1917 IS THE POTATO DOOMED?

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 277, 22 May 1917, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1917 IS THE POTATO DOOMED?

" We nothing extenuate, nor let down auoht in malice."

The question as to whether the esculent tuber, which has for three hundred vears been one of the most universal articles of food upon the dinner table of the rich man and the poor man alike, is on its death-bed or whether it is merely passing through an illness from which with careful nursing it may recover is a matter of so much moment to the people of Pukekohe and its neighbourhood that it will not be out of place to attempt a diagnosis of its complaint. A glance at the history of the potato may help us to understand why in this present year

of grace it appears to have become a prey to all the ills that flesh is heir to. Generations before Sir Walter Raleigh brought the precious vegetable to England some enquiring Red Indian, probably in Peru—but that point is uncertain —found a plant that had acquired the habit of storing up underground for its own use starches and foodstuffs in what is commonly looked upon as a root, but which is jn fact a branch, with all a branch's power of putting forth buds, leaves and flowers. Being of an enquiring turn of mind he found it was edible, and being of an astute nature he planted it so as to secure a free and regular supply. Cultivation no doubt hugely improved the tuber, both in size and quality, but unfortunately the original wild stock became extinct. The potatoes which Raleigh brought to England were all cuttings from a single plant, and in three hundred years there has been no opportunity of crossing it with an individual of the original race to vitalise anew its constitution. Other plants reproduce themselves from seed, and each generation starts with an entirely new life, but the potato is at least three, and probably many more, centuries old, and is suffering from senile decay. It is true that we grow potatoes from seed, and so obtain fresh varieties, but when we take the seedlings from two of its flowers, themselves mere sister-blossoms of a decayed and decripit stock, the very seedlings make their start in life with decayed constitutions due to so much in and in breeding. We may see the same degeneration in some royal families, and from the same cause. Lewis Carrol, in one of his delightful nonsense rhyms, coupled together "cabbages and Kings," but it will be sad indeed if we have to sing the "Lay of the Last Potato" at about the same period that we are cheerfully chronicling the end of the last of the Hohenzollerns.

Had the potatoe a younger and more robust constitution it would resist with more courage and determination the attacks of the pests that prey upon it. Most of us can remember how in the United States it was too enfeebled to resist the attack of the Colorado beetle. As a matter of fact it lies down under the attack of any disease with no more resolution to fight for its life than an anaemic Lincoln lamb. It looks alarmingly possible that in the not very distant future the botanical historian will have all the materials for writing the "Decline and Fall" of our most valuable vegetable.

But there is no need for the present generation., nor indeed the next, to give up the expectation of having mashed potatoes with their mutton chops. The potato is undoubtedly in feeble health, but it has good friends and capable nurses, and willnot be permitted to shuffle off this mortal coil while the unremitting attention of science can keep it with us. For years past at Kew, in England, and at the Jardin des Plants in Paris and elsewhere, no effort has been spared to restore its vigour by crossing it with other varieties of its own family, the solanums, to which the tomato and the Cape goosebery belong, and it is to be hoped that the attempt will succeed. The hybrid will share half the potato's enfeebled constitution but will undoubtedly be far stronger "and healthier than its decripit ancestor. Even if failure should meet these attempts the potato with care and solicitude may be coaxed to outlive the present century, though its cultivation will become more difficult year by year, and even in Pukekohe, potato-less days may yet be ordained.