THE PHYSIOLOGY OF SOWING SKEEDs. 615 
to find them generally sound, and free from 
symptoms of decay. And not only did the cut- 
tings appear in most instances quite sound, but 
in July and August, I observed many of them 
had emitted from the eye or bud, a funiculus, 
with a small tuber at the end, just as if a weak 
vegetation had been going on. These small 
tubers, however, soon ceased to increase, as the 
matter within the cuttings which supplied them 
with nutriment, was soon exhausted. This pro- 
duction of smail potatoes from tubers without any 
other vegetating organs is frequently met with 
in the centre of potatoe stores when these are 
opened in the spring, such tubers as have pro- 
duced them, being void of sprits. And when 
potatoes have been placed in dark cellars where 
no light nor much air can penetrate, and for- 
gotten there, and left to themselves during the 
summer, they frequently exhibit in autumn the 
singular appearance of a crop of tubers, without 
either root or stem. It appears, then, that the 
power of germinating may be lost in the tubers 
of potatoes, without the total cessation of vital 
action; just as in other tuberous roots, the 
tubers retain the power of emitting roots (the 
Dahlia for instance), when separated from the 
collet of the plant, and thereby precluded from 
