Untitled

Southland Times, Issue 23443, 25 February 1938, Page 2

The spectacular discovery in South and Central America by Russian scientists of many hitherto unknown species of potatoes, showing characteristics of the greatest economic importance, was described by Dr O. H. Frankel, geneticist of the Wheat Research Institute, in the annual Banks Lecture at Canterbury College. It was believed, he stated, that all the present cultivated varieties sprang from two importations from South America to Europe in the sixteenth centry, one going to Spain and the other to England. The Russian scientists, however, had recently found in South and Central America a ■wide diversity of forms, some showing extreme resistance to drought, to frost and to disease, others differing widely in chemical constituents, and other requiring no rest period, so that three generations could be grown in a year.