My dear Sir,

I am careful of your time, and this is no acknowledgment of your kind and valued letter of 16^th. June last, but I cannot let a day pass without giving you the results of yesterdays work.¹

yesterday I had raised about 500 varieties, out of one cross of the second generation, comprising about 1,500 varieties. These are this years seedlings and among the tubers (some 10,000) only three small ones were found diseased. Many of the plants produced from two to three lbs of tubers, all globular   I have had two reports from growers of new varieties of 1875—one is, “yield prodigious and no disease” the other is “immense yield and no disease”.

I have not raised the six acres of my own (or yours rather) 1877^s and ’78^s but in them I am informed there is some disease, and the process of selection must be carried out in them as it was in the 1875^s.²

But given a variety which has been during four or five years free from disease, will it continue to be so forever? I have no doubt that it will not, and I have no doubt that it will not live forever. New varieties must be continually coming into existence, in my opinion, if the maximum capacity of the plant is to be made available.

(To be continued)

I remain my dear Sir | most respectfully | and faithfully yours | James Torbitt