26 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[Jaiinary , 



a different phase of an internal bud or eye, 

 •giving rise to ne^v tubers. Fig. 4, was a fine Early 

 Kose Potato, externally smooth, showing two 

 young tubers growing within the parent, from J. 

 Hartman Hershey, among other potatoes exhib- 

 ited. Fig. 5, a Mercer Potato, greatly wrinkled 

 and withered externally, showing three young 

 .tubers and roots issuing from the interior of the 

 old tuber. This or these freaks may be common 

 and perhaps by no means strange to most of your 

 readers; nevertheless, I find no mention or ex- 

 -planation of the phenomena, if such it may be 

 -called. Mr. Geo. 0. Hensel, also brought me the 

 iDulb of a Tulip, which embedded a rhizoma of a 

 •species of grass. The structure of the tuber and 

 bulb being in some respects difierent, yet no doubt 

 the same law governs both cases. We frequently 

 ^notice the late or prostrate potato vines beset 

 with young tubers mixed with fresh foliage. 



cellulose and starch granules. I shall make 

 no comment upon the foregoing, only that the 

 tuber contains within its own substance the ele- 

 ments required to form the organs which are in- 

 tended to take up food from the air and soil ; in the 

 foregoing case however, no soil is present, which 

 makes it more marvellous. It is not my object 

 to enter upon a learned disquisition on cellular 

 tissues, which assume a great variety of forms, 

 varying with the circumstances in which it is 

 placed. 



The parenchymous tissue is in general the de- 

 pository of all the materials which in vegetables 

 administer to the sustenance of man. It is here 

 we find deposited the material that forms our 

 bread, from whatever grain or source derived, or 

 may be manufactured. It is the cellular tissue 

 filled with an amylaceous substance that com- 

 poses the edible part of the roots that are brought 



POTATO GROWTH EXTPwV. 



In Blyth's copy of "Liebig's Natural Laws of 

 Husbandry," I find it stated that a potato, which 

 lay wrapt up in thick paper, in a box, in the 

 chemical labratory at Giessen, in a place abso- 

 lutely dark, dry and warm, where the atmosphere 

 was seldom changed, was found to have produced 

 from each bud, a simple white shoot many feet 

 long, showing no traces of leaves, but covered 

 with hundreds of minute potatoes, which exhib- 

 ited the same internal structure as tubers grown 

 in a field; the cells consisted of cellulose, and 

 were filled with minute starch granules. It is cer- 

 tain that the starch of the mother tuber, to have 

 moved away from its position, must have become 

 soluble; but it is equally clear, that in the de- 

 velopment of the shoots, a cause was operative 

 within them, which, in the absence of all outward 

 causes whereon growth depends, reconverted the 

 -dissolved constituents of the mother tuber into 



to our tables. The mealiness of potatoes, as we 

 call it, is but the swollen starch grains which com- 

 pose this important vegetable. 



We will now consider the multiplication of cells 

 of young tubers coming in contact with a fixed 

 root or object in the soil ; this cell formation will 

 proceed in the direction of the least resistance, 

 the plastic condition by a kind of involution of the 

 mother cell and extension laterally, the cells 

 will continue to form, as in the ordinary process 

 of development, until the object is encompassed 

 (if not too large) and embedded among the tissues. 

 This simple natural process accounts for the three 

 cases. Figs. 1, 2, and 3. We meet with numerous 

 interruptions of a uniform development in the 

 roots of plants and trees flattened or turned aside 

 by rocks or other obstructions. I mention this, 

 because from the known force of plants under 

 germination exerting a great power, it was sup- 



