Potatoes.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 208, 25 June 1887, Page 4

Potatoes.

In the warmer districts around and to the north of Auckland, particularly on dry volcanic soils, the potato crop ought to be got in during next month, but further south, more inland, or on clay subsoils, September is the proper mouth ; again, where late frosts prevail it m ill be ad\ itahlc to pestpene the planting till October. There are certain districts v> here the soil is naturally moist, and where, owing to peculiar cliicatiecircumstances, very late frosts occur, and in tkese localities planting i^ often delayed until November, or even December, and I have known crop? sown ad late as January It just comes to this ; that there are two seasons of the year in which \ egetnti-in may be supposed to grow rapidly The one is during the spring showers, and the other is during the autumn showers', at both of which times, we ha\ c the two great motive powers of heat and moisture. All seed crops are best sown in spiing, because, not only is the summer heat favourable for the development of seed?, but in drj', warm weather alone can such ciop? be harvested ; but crops of roots arc best grown in autumn, as then they are less likely to run to seed, and such crops as turnips, carrots, mangolds, etc., are not injured by wet, nor (the turnip in patticular) by the frost. So with the potato, it will grow planted at either time, and in suitable districts two crop 3 can be taken perfectly well in one year. I should say that the immediate neighbourhood of Auckland is one of the most favourable climates in the world for this crop ; in other districts the danger of early planting is from fiosts nipping down the plants ; in late spring planting, from want of sufficient rain to mature the roots, and in summer planting, the difficulty is in harvesting, on account of the winter rains. When potatoes have been planted somo months, and tho weather has been too dry for them to'thrive, when they are beginning to droop, and show signs of premature ripening, and then the longlooked for rain comes, and comes, as it generally does, in greater quantities than it is wanted, " second growth " is sure to follow. The small tubers swell out into prominences greater than themselves, which ar© in point of fact lt new potatoes," and taken up unripe, with their skins rubbing off, they will not keep any length of time at all, besides which the roots are exceedingly unshapely, and they are glassy and otherwise unhealthy. It, on the other hand, the stalks have fairly died down, then the crop |S most likely to rot, unless, indeed, the ground happens to be of a very porous nature to a considerable depth, and that sort of soil is not at all favourable for the crop. So you will perceive that the system of late planting is fraught with so many evils that it becomes a very doubtful speculation to grow potatoes in districts where very late planting is necessary. I do not like late planting. I would rather not plant at all than put it off after October in any climate whatever, and I would rather run the risk of the late frosts than the almost certainty of the heavy autumnal rains ; and I speak on this subject from experience, having had 27 years in a warm, and six years in a colder district. At the same time, it sometimes happens that even in the most favourable districts an unusual season occurs, and such a season was the last one. Dry weather set in very early, andeoutinued throughout the summer and autumn rains caused the second growth and other evils in tho best of districts, and the worst of it is that the loss docs not stop at the present crop, but is extended to the next, and often several succeeding crops, through its influence upon the seed, for, when the seed is affected it is by no means so easily remedied as most people imagine. Some people imagine that if they get a good aound seed potato to plant they are all right, but it does not follow, as a matter of course. When a root is ripe and taken out of the ground in order to produce a good crop, it must be kept unplanted for a certain length of time in a dormant state, that period being about five months, and it Bhould not be kept so for more than six months, so that seed potatoes from early are not good to grow late crops, nor from late crops to grow early ; and to bring such a change of season about requires several years of gradual change ; so that when the crops of a late district fail or produce bud seed it becomes exceedingly difficult to regain dt&irable seed. Imported fiotatoes never make good seed the first year, t follows, therefore, that after abad year very great extra care is requisite in selecting the seed for the next ; and this^ is my reason for drawing particular attention this planting time to a subjoct I have written about before. We have now had three bad years in succe&sion,and lastseed time on the farm where the writer now resides forty tons cf seed were rejected, which no doubt a less

experienced grower would have used to his loss. I'confess that the present year is a very ■unumally bad one for procuring de-sirable-seed andlshouldbe sadly wanting in my 'duty not to warn faimersto take %ory partiovkir care in its selection. The soil, the manure used, the mode of cultivation, planting, and subsequent management are all raatters of great importance, but the quality of the seed is of still more importance than the whole of them put together, and the sum of their significance multiplied toy 10. It is only a year ago that I s-iw a farmer planting fine large cub seed, and he wa-> both astonished and indignant when I advised him to sell them for what ho could get, and use nice smooth stones out of the river bed ; but he had better have taken the advice for he did not get his seed back. His land wds filled with weods, and ho was out of pocket as well. An experienced eye will detect bad seed at a glance, but it is not too easy to debcribe every kind, but I will try. A eood seed ought to have a nice dry, smooth skin, be moist and sufficiently plump, without being too wet The eyes should be sproutin"- with fat healthy shoots, short, nml tluck, and st.ont*, and if any length, theva should be a fringe of embryo roots around the bottom of the shoots. The colour of the shoots depends upon the variety of the potato. In Hobarb Town and Circular He ids, and other red, round kinds, it is pink or daiVpurple. I like the dark colour best, but the pink will do. When the tuber is cut, the knife should go easily through When laid oven, the colour should be white (or tinged with blue if the variety requires it) ; it should not be clear, but opaque, and when left for awhile it j ought to dry without showing either black or rod colour, and there ought to be plenty of dry starch powder over dried cuts. The skin may becomo a little flaccid, but it should not " shrivel.' If boiled, they must be good to eat, but if they show any black or dark colour, and the taste is not good, you will do well to distrust them. But seed potatoes which have been a little too long in the bins, or which are either near the top or the side, particularly the sunny side, may.be a good deal wrinkled and yet not bo bad seed, although oil" the fir&L letter. These will plump out in the ground, but you must carefully distinguish between this "wrinkle" and a diseased "shrivel;" nothing i 3 more necessary. A good seed must in all lespects, except size, be a good potato to eat. Now I will endeavour to describe a few of the signs of bad seed, and I will c mime myself to those which (please remember) you must on no account plant.

Utterly' Bad Seed. A flaccid potato which ha=* no sign^ of growth at the eye=, and is flabby inside. A potato whose skin has carious wandering wrinkles or marks, and in Avho^e eyes th-re i» a little black powder, instead of a shoot. A potato whose shoots are long and threadlike. A potato whose hkin is crinkled, and whose lower end is " pinched in " and hard. A potato uho^e skin is hard and clear, and covered with little white spots ; this potato is hard and heavy. A potato which, when cut, is clear, hard and watery. A potato which, when cut, shows an opening or split in the centre, with ■white edges or which cuts hard and shows black marks (often very black), and pinched, hard substances. A potato which, when cut, shows any black at all, or one that is flabby and shows brick red, or which turns brick red in a patch near the centre, which -will afterwards turn darker, till it is black, and then be covered with sticky slime in a day or two. None of these potatoes will grow at all, except the thready shoots and clear hard one?, which may, but will produce nothing afc all. To these I profer the stones from the river bed.

Very Bad Seed. Potatoes with glas3 ends (second growth), long narrow seed full of eyes. Unshapely potatoes with hardly any eyes and no shoots. Unripe potatoes, gathered unripe, or not kept long enough. Potatoes connected together by a thick string. Potatoes with a dark blue heart like a leaf, and a rough pimply skin. Hard, waxy, many eyed potatoes. Bad varieties which run small, and so fill the seed bins in ill sorted arrangements. Any potato of a variety different from the main crop. Dangerous Sked to Trust To. Many experienced farmers, who know better than to use any of the above varieties of worthies? seed, are too often taken in by fine large tubers that were once splendid seed. I will just give you an example of it. A man who had been a grower and a dealer in potatoes many yeais once asked me to go and see some " splendid " potatoes he had purchased from a vessel from the Southern Provinces. When we got near the shed I told him I had seen enough. The whiff of the peculiar scent of a heated potato cannot be mistaken. Inside there were plenty of these minute flic*, in such numbers that their predence alone was enough to condemn the seed. Boys were picking out the rotten ones, which, up to that time, were not many, but when you picked up what was considered a sound one and passed the finger over the eyes you could detect a softer place here and there, even where the shoot was fine and strong, and on cutting it open there was a yellow spot, more or less marked and more or less soft. They were certainly splendid large tubers, and very well sorted pure Circular Heads, but they had been heated, and were gone beyond redemption. My advice was not only to sell them, but to do so by auction immediately, and get clear of the whole lot, as no one that bought any of them would want more ; and in proof of that, I took some of the soundest and cooked them. They were fine and mealy but slightly blackened, and had an unpleasant taste. However he did not take my advice, and laughed at it, in fact, and used them for seed. There were 500 sacks of them, which, with repeated sortings and rejections in cutting, were reduced to about one-half, and of the half that were planted, as far as I was able to learn, not a single bag full me up. This is an extreme case, but it true, and I have given the details now because, as we are situated thi3 year for, seed it is likely a great deal of Southern seed will be used, and it is therefore the, more necessary that I should draw attention to it. Some one may ask me, " What am 1 to do if I cannot get any better seed ?" which I answer, Scotchman like, by another question, " What is the vee of planting seed that will not grow when stones are to be bad for nothing, and will do better ?'

Rotten Seed. The experiments that have been tried at home with rotten seed, and of which we have heard so much, are of no use whatever, except to amuse paper farmers. If you were to take one of those fine large potatoes I have mentioned, and if you found a nice strong shoot upon it, quite uninjured, you might plant the set in a well-pulverized ground under favourable circumstances, and it would grow well enough, and for that matter the shoot entirely removed from the tuber will grow and bear fruit top, as I have repeatedly proved by experiment ; but thrown into sacks, and knookod about, these shoots are rubbed off or injured, and the heated potato will never keep long enough to throw out others. Everyone has seen potatoes growing thick from rejected seed

thrown out of the pits, but if those seeds had been sent up the field and the shoots rubbed off they would not have grown at

all. Injured Seed. There nro seeds that have holes in them, made by insects, and even rotten places, which, if cub out, will not extend, and these, if otherwise good, will do. It is not difficult for an experienced hand to distinguish kinds of rottenness. A bunch of potatoes in a pit may often be found rotten because a rotten one has been put in at harvest time, or very often from a leak in the thatch, but that circumstance does not affect the general health of the pit, whereas if potatoes are injured by beino- confined and heated in the hold of a ship or other place tho rot extends through the whole ma=s from the same cause, and some are more forward than others in I decay, but everyone of them has the perms of tho disease, and they are all booked sooner or later. Sorting or cutting away parts affected is of no use whatever, but it is in some other kind of rot and injury.

Small Eyes. There is another kind of seed that I do not like, a small potato, perfectly sound, and good to eat, and to look at. The eyes are small and numerous, and do not seem well developed. It is pretty hard, but neither too glassy nor too watery, will dry white and starchy enough. These tubers are generally tho small ones from a good root, but are' backward, and do not bear the characteristic type of the variety.

Bad Kinds. As a general rule, the small potatoes do not bear the typo of the variety very plainly, and it is therefore difficult to pick out good kinds from seed sizes. For this reason alone it is worth while to improve one's seed by growing a few every year from large and undoubted types. All bad kinds of potatoes mn small, and a great many of them produce very large numbers of small tubers, a\ ith very few large ones. Hence, if you go on growing from your seed size [bins you will soon have an enormous and an increatfng preponderance of bad varieties a s °»c root of bad will furnish you with eight or ton seeds, to every one that the good will. I should like to go on to give you a few more hints, but that must not be, however, as most people plant in September. If the editor is agieeable, I may give you another dose next month. The fact is, it is nearly GO years since I had my first lesson on my cousin's lar^e farm in Haddingtonshire, and it Yiill piobably take me 60 years more to tell you all I could wish. I have no doubt of being able to manage my part, but am afraid none of you will be left by the time I have done. Komata.