THE PLANT WORLD UNDER CARE 



253 



AN ENLARGED VIEW OF A THIMBLEFUL OF POTATO SEED, NOW AT ARCADIA, THAT 



COST OVER SIX DOLLARS. 



invited others into the work. I talked 

 about it from the lecture platform in 

 various parts of the state. At last 

 came a letter and a package. "Here, 

 Air. Bigelow," said the letter, "are 

 fifty dollars' worth. I found these 

 two in hunting over an acre of potato 

 patch and I send them to you. Collect 

 fifty dollars from the professor. You 

 keep twenty-five. That will be fair to 

 both." With high anticipations I un- 

 wound the fastenings and removed the 

 cover of that box, but how dissimilar 

 to those great, round, smooth, tomato- 

 like forms so familiar to me, just a few 

 days ago, as it seemed, in boyhood's 

 familiarity with the potato patch ! 

 These were vestigial berries no larger 

 than peas ! So for thirteen years I 

 have searched in vain to prove that 

 Professor Gully is wrong, but he must 

 still limit that claim to Connecticut, 

 although it would not cost him a for- 

 tune should he extend to the United 

 States in general. 



From the lecture platform in Teach- 

 ers' Institutes in Ohio, Indiana and 

 Pennsylvania I have told the story of 

 that startling announcement, and in 

 most places I have offered a year's 

 subscription to this magazine for a 

 box of well-developed specimens. Last 

 August I made the offer before more 

 than two thousand teachers of Alle- 

 gheny County at Pittsburgh, Pennsyl- 

 vania, and again in one of the countr\- 

 districts of southern Indiana. The 

 announcement was received with eren-- 



eral surprise and the remark, "W^e can 

 send them to \ou by the bushel. We 

 will bankrupt you on subscriptions." 

 But of the thousands of teachers that 

 promised to search the fields only 

 about a dozen have responded, and 

 no package contained more than eight 

 or ten balls. Nearly all have been 



rilE POTATO SEED STILL FURTHER ENLARGED. 



