422 GRAFT-HYBRIDS. Chap. XL 



and colour,"' and many of the plants thus raised " were intermediate 

 " in the tubers as well as in the haulms." He describes the more 

 striking eases. 



In 1871 I received a letter from Mr. Merrick, of Boston, U.S.A., 

 who states that, " Mr. Fearing Burr, a vei'y careful experimenter and 

 " author of a much valued book, ' The Garden Vegetables of 

 " America,' has succeeded in i^roducing distinctly mottled and 

 " most curious potatoes — evidently graft-hybrids, by inserting eyes 

 " from blue or red potatoes into the substance of white ones, after 

 " removing the eyes of the latter. I have seen the potatoes, and 

 " they are very curious." 



We will now turn to the experiments made in Germany, since 

 the publication of Prof Hildebrand's paper. Herr Magnus relates^" 

 the results of numerous trials made by Herren Eeuier and Linde- 

 muth, both attached to the Koyal Gardens of Berlin. They inserted 

 the eyes of red potatoes into white ones, and vice versa Many 

 different forms partaking of the characters of the inserted bud and 

 of the stock were thus obtained; for instance, some of the tubers 

 were white with red eyes. 



Herr Magnus also exhibited in the following year before the same 

 Society (Nov. 19, 1872), the produce of grafts between black, white, 

 and red potatoes, made by Dr. Neubert. These were made by 

 uniting not the tubers but the young stems, as was done by IMr. 

 Fitzpatrick. The result was remarkable, inasmuch as all the 

 tubers thus produced were intermediate in character, though in a 

 variable degree. Those between the black and the white or the red 

 were the most striking in appearance. Some from between the 

 white and red had one half of one colour and the other half of the 

 other colour. 



At the next meeting of the society Herr Magnus communicated 

 the results of Dr. Heimann's experiments in gTafting together the 

 tubers of red Saxon, blue, and elongated white potatoes. The eyes 

 were removed by a cylindrical instrument, and inserted into corre- 

 sponding holes in other varieties. The plants thus produced yielded 

 a great number of tubers, which were intermediate between the two 

 parent-forms in shape, and in the colour both of the flesh and skin. 



Herr Eeuter experimented,"* by inserting wedges of the elongated 

 "White Mexican potato into a Black Kidney potato. Both sorts are 

 known to be very constant, and differ much not only in form and 

 colour, but in the eyes of the Black Kidney being deeply sunk, 

 whereas those of the White Mexican are superficial and of a 

 different shape. The tubers produced by these hybrids were 

 intermediate in colour and form; and some which resembled in 

 form the graft, i.e. the Mexican, had eyes deeply sunk and of the 

 same shape as in the stock or Black Kidney. 



>■' «Gard. Chron.,' 1870, p. 1506. Berliu.' Oct. 17, 1871. 

 "< ' Sitzung berichte der Gesell- "^ Ibid.. Nov. 17, 1874. Se also 



schaft naturforschender Freunde zu excellent remarks by Herr Magnus. 



