NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



proven so successful, he has not hesitated to 

 set about producing improved ones, the possi- 

 biUties of the potato for doing better and still 

 better service to the v^^orld being unusually 

 pronounced. With this end in view, he has 

 gathered varieties, both w^ild and tame, from 

 many different countries, making from them 

 a bewildering number of crosses and combina- 

 tions. Some of them are curious in character, 

 as, for example, the snake potato, a crescent- 

 shaped type from South America about three 

 inches long and a little over half an inch thick 

 in its largest part. The wild potato from Ari- 

 zona has a most peculiar form. One would 

 never believe it to be a potato. In shape and 

 general appearance it is a large-sized raisin. 

 Some of the potatoes of this variety are dark 

 reddish brown in color, some lighter, but all 

 have the distinctive shrunken look and shape 

 of the raisin. 



Such wild potatoes as this form valuable 

 adjuncts to the work. Very often a wild strain 

 of blood supplies Mr. Burbank just the needed 

 element to make a weak race powerful. It 

 was Emerson, whom Mr. Burbank most de- 

 lights to quote, who said one day on this point: 



88 



