THE POTATO ITSELF 305 



the crossing and hybridization of the ex- 

 isting varieties of potato, and the raising of 

 seedlings. 



My own experiments in this direction have 

 been extensive, and have led to some interesting 

 results, even though the spectacular features of 

 the production of the original Burbank have been 

 lacking. 



My most interesting hybridizing experiments 

 have been with the wild or half -wild species of 

 potato that are indigenous to various parts of 

 subtropical and tropical America. An account 

 of some of these experiments has been already 

 given in another volume, to which the reader is 

 referred. There, to be sure, the experiments in 

 hybridizing the potato were classified as failures, 

 inasmuch as they led to no commercially valu- 

 able result. But it will be seen that they did not 

 lack interest from a scientific standpoint. In 

 particular some of the results in crossing the 

 Darwin potato (Solarium maglia) with the com- 

 mon potato, through which a vine was produced 

 that bore a remarkable fruit, were cited at some 



length. 



Interesting Hybrids 



Here we may refer a little more in detail to 

 results of this hybridizing experiment that were 

 not mentioned in the earlier chapter. 



