Much affected by the suffering caused by the Irish famine Henry tried to find a blight-resistant potato and for years searched any blighted fields for resistant plants. This led him to a strain he called ‘Berkshire Kidney’ which he grew for years, only to find that it too was swept away in a year when the blight was particularly rampant. The potato, although it fell at this hurdle, had qualities enough for him to sell his stock to Sutton’s Seeds of Reading.
