REPORT or GREENE COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 149 



their long winter rest, to sprout, on the disappearance of the snow 

 and the return of the congenial rays of the sun. 



The potato is a pernenial. Its tops or stems and fibrous or feeding 

 roots die at the close of the season, after having provided underground 

 stems or branches stocked with buds to renew the growth of the plant 

 the next season, by one or more buds sprouting and sending up stems 

 bearing foliage and down fibrous roots — this new growth sends out 

 eome branches underground, which, in the course of the season, 

 thicken at their end as they receive a stock of nourishment prepared 

 by this year's foliage and become new tubers to live over winter and 

 make the next year's growth. These tubers are commonly supposed 

 to be roots, but they are not ; their eyes are buds, and the little scales 

 behind them answer to leaves, while roots bear neither buds nor 

 leaves. The fibrous or feeding roots, which grow from these subterra- 

 nean branches are very different in appearance from underground stems. 

 Now, it is evident that anything that tends to diminish the amount of 

 nutriment stored in the tubers, or to deteriorate its quality, will have a 

 deleterious effect upon its future growth, and if this store is dimin- 

 ished year by year in quality and quantity, so will the entire plant 

 g;row more feeble. 



If the plant was moved nearer to the snowline, so that its season 

 of growth should be so short, that it could not mature seeds, nor lay by 

 a sufiQcient store of nutriment in its tubers to send up stout, vigorous 

 and healthful stalks, it would grow more feeble, until it would finally 

 become extinct. I will state, in order to make this article as plain 

 as possible, that the potato will, under favorable circumstances, be- 

 come indigenous to some portions of the Northern States and Terri- 

 tories, where the snow falls early before the ground freezes and lays 

 on all winter. 



Now, if instead of moving the potato up, or farther north, which 

 would be equivalent, if we move it south, until the seasons are 

 much longer than is necessary for its growth and maturity, as is the 

 •case here, instead of being checked in its growth by frost at its proper 

 stage of growth, and its tubers stored, without exposure to heat and 

 light beneath their winter blanket of snow, as soon as the tubers 

 mature the feeding or fibrous roots, having performed their functions, 

 give way or die off, and the tops and foliage endeavor and do live for 

 a time by drawing sustenance from the store of nourishment laid by in 

 the tubers for the next year's growth, thereby deteriorating the quality 

 of its store of nutriment, both for food and for sending up vigorous 

 shoots and branches and foliage ; and thus being weakened, cannot 

 store its bountiful supply of nutriment as it would under more con- 



