From James Torbitt   [after 19 November 1879]¹

Dear Sir,

I am much obliged to you for 16 seed potatoes weighing 2 lbs $\frac{1}{2}$ oz which reached here safely on the 17^th April last & agreeably to your conditions in the ‘Field’ Newspaper on the 12^th of that month beg to send you results.²

Immediately on their arrival I placed them to sprout in a moderately warm frame along with my bedding out plants but it was not until the 20^th May when I thought they had grown sufficiently (about half an inch) that I cut them into 41 sets and planted them in some good rich soil dug two spits deep with only a small quantity of ordinary farm yard manure added

The crop was lifted on 28^th October & found to weigh 20$\frac{1}{2}$ lbs—the whole of the tubers with the exception of one about the size of a walnut being entirely free from disease*

I have caused a few to be boiled & found them very good cookers & eaters

A good many of them grew irregular in shape but I should think the produce was over the average in this District—this wretched season³

Truly yours. | Will^m Meredith

James Torbitt Esq^re. | 58 North Street | Belfast.

* very probably this is not the fungus—these small tubers being often otherwise diseased

Scattered all over the Kingdom, there are, perhaps a thousand growers like this, but it will require two or three years more for the varieties to attain sufficient bulk to be appreciated.

J.T.