Note 113 — Chapter V

Letter to the Duke of Leinster quoted in Irish Census for 1851. M. Zander, of Boitzenberg, in Prussia, published, about this time, a method by which full sized potatoes could be produced in one year from the seed, and he further stated that the seedlings so produced had resisted the blight. The old idea was, that it took three years to produce full-sized potatoes from the seed. M. Zander's method was tried in various parts of Ireland and England, its chief peculiarity being that the seed was sown on a light hot bed, and the plants so produced were transferred to the ground in which they were to produce the crop. Full-sized potatoes were the result, each plant producing, on an average, 1½ lbs. of potatoes, or rather more than 29 tons to the Irish acre. This method appeared satisfactory to those who interested themselves about it, but it does not seem to have been followed up.