Farm Notes.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4462, 14 September 1909, Page 4

Farm Notes.

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OF POTATOES. The- practice of “greening ” or* of •xposing tothe light, potatoes that are intended for seed, is an old one. In likelihood the primary intention ? yra& to harden the tubers- in constitu;,toob. At least two generations ago cultivators (were in the habit * "of -raking some of the earth off the drills in early autumn for the purpose a proportion of the tubers . which were intended for special feed purposes. By degrees the practice was virtually given up in field Culture, but gardeners and small holders ad* hersd to it with more or less fidelity. , In this month’s journal of the Board of Agriculture Mr George Massee, of the Eoyal Botanical Gardens, Kew, deals with the “ greening” of tubers. E&iEKa.eoncleriog is that the practice of exposing the tubers, especially during the autumn, causes the skin or peri-' danm to become comparatively impervious to water and gases, and tends to check the ravages of rot. Further, it tends to produce short, sturdy, strong* attached sprouts instead of the long soft and weak qhoots which spring from tubers that are hurried off into darkness. It is not at all likely that Mr Massee is fit to teach growers of early potatoes* for instance, much that is either new, or practicable so. far as field work is concerned. Still, the results of his experiments are inter- ; esting. . In the first test he took two batches of Up-to*Dates on 25th August, .six days after lifting. The tubets we» ’ then of exactly the same weight. One batch was covered with opaque black paper, and the other was freely exposed to the. light, both sets being on '.a shelf in a well lighted room. The sprouts were constantly removed as "they appeared, and the tubers were .turned once a week. On 25th March ,"‘i it whs found that the batch covered * black paper had lost 3£ozs, while vthe batch which had been exposed to - the light had lost barely three-quar-ters of an ounce. ‘ Mr varied his , experiment by covering two batches with black paper, and also by . exposing one set for a time, and then "coVering^both 1 with paper for the remainder of the testing period. The conclusioir was that that the tubers exposed for a longer or shorter period id the action of light * protected themselves, or held pretty strongly to their first weight. He further proved that when the surface of a potato is covered with an impermeable varnish, except on the “eyes,” no sprouting took place under the most favourable conditions. Before a potato can begin to sprout a certain amount of its starch must be formed into sugar, and this can only be done when there is a free interchange between the gases formed in the interior of a tuber and the atmosphere.—Glasgow Herald.