185*7.] American Ingenuity. 473 



They were cut up in pieces (Chinese mode) about three out of each 

 tuber, and put into a cask, and filled in with sandy earth. There 

 was mixed with them a production which we were unacquainted 

 with— at least as far as I know. These were a sort of stalks, about 

 one centimeter (f of an inch) thick, by from ten to twenty centi- 

 meters (four to eight inches) long, quite irregular in length some 



a little branched with tubercules still attached to them, resemblin*^"- 

 what botanists call rhizomes (horizontal roots.) 



I planted sections of the tubers, from one to four inches long on 

 the 7th of July, 1856, in a very light soil, near the so^itherly side 

 of a wall. I left them out all the following winter, without the 

 least shelter. Last May I examined the tubers, and found them as 

 sound as when they were planted ten months before, (July, 1856.) 

 I believe that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find an- 

 other feculent (starch) tuber keep so well in the ground. 



I find that it will keep in the ground sound under very unfavor- 

 able circumstances, for two years at least. 



This is a distinguished merit — highly profitable to farmers — and 

 deserves the particular notice of the imperial society. 



AMERICAN INGENUITY. 



Last week we published a list of five eases for Wfhich petitions are 

 now before the Patent Office, asking that certain patents may be ex- 

 tended for a period of seven years. By reference to the last number 

 of the 12th volume of the Scientific American, it will be seen that 

 twenty-six patents were extended during the past year ; thus show- 

 ing that, although many inventions prove unprofitable, and often- 

 times, perhaps, for want of proper managment, involve their origin- 

 ators in a complication of disasters, yet, in a majority of eases, we 

 are inclined to think that the patentee either parts with his right for 

 a snug sum of money, or engages in the manufacture and sale of 

 his improvement, and thereby secures for himself not only a good 

 but also a profitable and permanent business. 



The fact that so many patentees are always anxious to get their 

 patents extended, goes to strengthen the position we have assumed, 

 that patented inventions are not by any means so generally unprofit- 



