Rural School Leaflet 



907 



home, a time when the plant itself must wither and die ; and what though 

 it die, since below the ground, filled with food and drink (the tuber consists 

 of 78 per cent water and 18 per cent starch), is its food storehouse with 

 plenty of buds on it, which will be thus nourished and started on a vigorous 

 growth as soon as the season is again propitious. 



It is astonishing how much food for plant growth there is in a single 

 potato tuber. I once found a sprout that had grown from a potato bin 

 along the comer of the cellar floor and then climbed the wall to the cellar 

 window, a distance of fifteen feet. I remember looking at this sprout with 

 something like awe; it had so longed for light that it had made all that 





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Underground part of potato plant in msllow soil 



long journey to reach the life-giving sunshine; it looked pale and ansemic 

 except at the point where it pushed against the windowpane, and that 

 was healthily green. The mother potato was very much withered, having 

 given up her substance to the sprout. Ever after, a potato always seemed 

 to me a motherly creature, holding herself ready to help her growing 

 children until she was withered and old. It was always a mystery to 

 me, that she should know just how to select those eyes that would grow, 

 and thus not waste her substance on too many children but give those that 

 she did send out a better start. 



Some persons merely cut up a seed potato and plant each eye by itself; 

 but most persons think that this does not give the shoot the food that it 

 should have to nourish it until the roots furnish the food supply. The 

 usual practice is to plant a half or a quarter of the tuber instead. In 



