James Clark (horticulturist)

James Clark (1 May 1825 – 5 June 1890), was an English market gardener and horticulturist in Christchurch, Dorset who specialised in raising new varieties of potato.

In the wake of this tragedy potato breeders sought to find a reliable alternative to the disgraced Lumpers and Cups that had been the mainstay of the Irish planting.

[2] In 1869 Clark moved his family to Cranemoor, a hamlet a few miles east of Christchurch, where his wife became the caretaker at the small Congregational chapel.

He realised that this new variety held great promise, so he nurtured them and in the spring of 1874 he sent some of his seedlings to the noted horticulturist Shirley Hibberd for him to test at his trial-ground in Hornsey.

It was a white, kidney-shaped late maincrop with a floury texture and a blandly sweet flavour that grew vigorously, withstood disease, and gave good yields.

There is a very considerable consensus of opinion that in a great number of soils Messrs. Sutton's 'Magnum Bonum' has survived in bad years, and yielded abundantly in good.

These included Maincrop/Langworthy (1876), Reading Hero (1881), Sutton's Seedling (1886), Abundance (1886), Best of All (1887), Satisfaction (1887), Masterpiece (1887), White Kidney (1888), Early Market (1888), Matchless (1889), Nonesuch (1889), Perfection (1892), Triumph (1892), Supreme (1893), Epicure (1897), No Plus Ultra (1897), Reliance (1897), Ninetyfold (1897), Ideal (1898), Inevitable (1898), Centenary (1900), and Favourite (1902).