ON THE TOMATO 



them, and which in turn must receive material for 

 the growing of their tubers from that vine, showed 

 quite unmistakably the influence of the foreign 

 system of leaves with which they were associated. 



Instead of being smooth and symmetrical like 

 ordinary potatoes the tubers were small and ill- 

 shaped, and some of them had rough and corru- 

 gated scale-like surfaces, suggesting the skin of a 

 lizard rather than that of a potato. Moreover, 

 they were bitter in flavor and utterly unlike the 

 ordinary potato in taste. They further showed 

 their departure from the traditions of their kind 

 by manifesting a tendency to sprout even while 

 the tomato top was still growing vigorously. 



Perhaps these results, as regards both the rela- 

 tive normality of the tomatoes borne by the grafted 

 vine, and the abnormality of the potatoes grown 

 by the roots, might have been expected. At least 

 they seemed quite explicable. 



It will be recalled that the conditions of plant 

 growth were detailed somewhat at length in the 

 first chapter of the present volume, and that it was 

 there pointed out that the plant roots absorb from 

 the soil about them mineral salts in solution that 

 are carried up to the leaves of the plant before 

 they are transformed into organic matter by 

 combination with carbon drawn from the air. It 

 was noted that the organic compounds thus 



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