The following is submitted to you with the greatest diffidence.¹

In the summer of 1875 I planted 5,000 potato plants derived during the previous spring from the seed. In the autumn I found that a few of them had produced fruit, a larger number had blossomed but failed to produce fruit, and the great majority did not flower at all.

About 1,000 of these plants formed tubers which appeared promising, these I preserved, keeping the tubers of each seed separate from all the others. In the spring of 1876 I planted these tubers, still keeping the produce of each seed separate from the others, and in the autumn I found that a larger proportionate number had produced fruit, a larger number had blossomed and failed to produce fruit, a considerable number had failed to blossom, and they all, as of course formed tubers.

Out of these 1,000 varieties, as I may now call them, I made a further selection of some hundreds of the best, preserved them and again planted them in the spring of 1877, still keeping the tubers which were the produce of each particular seed separate from all the others; and in the autumn I found that a still larger proportionate number of them had produced fruit, almost all had blossomed, and a few had produced neither fruit nor flowers.

To my mind these facts seem to indicate, that the plants derived from seed sown in the spring of 1875 and which had produced seed in the succeeding autumn were so precocious, comparatively speaking, as to have reached the age of puberty in the first year of life, that those which had produced flowers and no fruit, had reached the age of adolescence as it were, and that those which did not blossom were still in early youth—some of them probably being sterile.

The facts seem to show to me also, that in the years 1876 and, 77 larger numbers of the “varieties” had reached the age of puberty and of adolescence and that some of them were still in the state of infancy and I believe that the tubers of 1875 were one year older than were the tubers of 1876 and so are during the continuance of the existence of the variety.

Again, about fifteen years ago a variety named “Skerry Blue”² made its appearance in the North of Ireland and it now blossoms pretty freely, but the flowers drop off and not one plant in a thousand yields its fruit. Its flower is inconspicuous, its stems are small, and its foliage is ragged and sickly looking. It was, it is said, for some years fungus-proof but during the last four or five, it has become, so I am told, year by year, more and more subject to the attack of the fungus. It forms a striking contrast to the seedlings of 1875 ’6 & ’7. Their stems are thick and strong, the foliage mostly of a dark green, looking some one has said as if it had been oiled, and the flowers are, for the species, exceedingly conspicuous, those which are white, seeming at a distance to sparkle in the sunlight. That variety (the Skerry) I believe has become so old as to be incapable of continuing the species. True, I have found no one to tell me whether or not it produced its seed some years ago, but as it still blossoms I think it not unreasonable to conclude that at one time it did. Again, another variety called “Cruffle” has been cultivated for a longer time than the Skerry, and it is now unable to flower, it makes an attempt which is abortive, the organs wither and drop off during process of formation. I believe it is older than the “skerry” as well in constitution as in years.³

Again the “ash leaf kidney”⁴ has been longer under cultivation than the “Cruffle” and it does not make an attempt even to develope its organs of reproduction, at least not one plant in a hundred does. As will be seen hereafter however, this variety occasionally produces both flower and seed. Here it may be well to say that there may be, and probably are, varieties of the plant now in existence, which are called “ash leaf kidneys”, the tubers of which resemble those of the “ash leaf kidney” in shape colour and texture, and which produce both flowers and fruit. If so, I believe they are not the produce of the same seed which produced the first mentioned ash leaf kidney. I have now from seeds sown in the spring of 1877 some fifty varieties which Farmers would call ash leaf kidneys.

Further, sometime during the winter of 1875 Mr Johnston M.P. for Belfast⁵ told me he had succeeded in finding berries of the “Skerry Blue” and had grown plants from the seed with the view of obtaining new Skerry Blues, but he said that the resulting tubers were “small” It occurred to me that they were the equivalents of old mens children and I resolved to test, if possible, the accuracy or inaccuracy of that idea. Therefore in the spring of 1876 I planted a few tubers of all the old varieties I could procure, and in the autumn was rewarded by a cluster of berries of the ash leaf kidney. In the season of 1877 I grew 150 plants derived from the seeds of these berries. They were all small and weak looking, 146 of these died during the summer and the surviving 4 plants produced in the agregate about one fourth of the weight of tubers produced on an average by one plant derived from seed cross-fertilized by your directions, growing the same season, in the same field, and treated in the same way.

Before fatiguing you further and before entering on a new line of argument, I would beg of you to say is it interesting, and do you wish me to continue, or am I in a dream?

I remain dear Sir, with profound respect, faithfully, and gratefully, and very sincerely yours | James Torbitt

I beg to enclose a few seeds of a dwarf seedling plant which produced I am told no tubers but an immense profusion of flowers, perhaps they may give something curious, and yourself or Sir J. Hooker⁶ might like to grow them.