From James Torbitt [18 March 1880]1
[Enclosure]
many varieties of the potato which are so prolific and so free from the disease, that they leave, after separating the few diseased tubers, a larger crop of sound tubers than the common old varieties give of sound and diseased tubers taken together.
Knight found (1)34 tons potatoes per statute acre.2 I have found as much as (2)24 tons tubers, and (3)13 tons berries, while the average for Ireland last season according to statistics just published was 26(4) cwt. And no berries at all— now what would be thought of a crop of strawberries which was all roots and foliage and no berries?(5) And yet the capacity of sexual reproduction, is as well developed in the potato during the second and third years of life, as it is in the strawberry. Why does it fail in the 17th. year of life as with the Champion?3
1)
2) at the rate of
3)
4 hundred weight
5 fruit of the plant
CD annotations
Footnotes
Summary
On the disease-resisting qualities and yield of certain potatoes.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12381
- From
- James Torbitt
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- DAR 52: E15
- Physical description
- AL inc †
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12381,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12381.xml