ON THE POTATO 



In its stem and blossom, also, the plant is quite 

 different from the ordinary potato, and it com- 

 monly bears a seedball that is larger than the 

 seedball that the cultivated potato bears on rare 

 occasions; the seeds themselves, however, being 

 much smaller. 



I grew seedlings of the Darwin potato and 

 improved them by selection until they produced 

 tubers of enormous size, some of them weighing 

 two to two and a half pounds. Then hybridizing 

 experiments were carried out between the Darwin 

 and the common potato. 



More than half a million seedlings of hybrids 

 between these two species were raised. 



The Darwin potato is much more fixed in its 

 characters than the cultivated potato, and these 

 characteristics proved largely dominant in the 

 progeny of the first generation, this dominance 

 extending to the tubers themselves, which resemble 

 their wild ancestor in size, color, irregularity of 

 form, deep eyes, and tendency to decay. 

 EIGHT-FOOT VINES 



There were, however, some astonishing 

 anomalies manifested by the hybrid progeny. 

 Some of the vines grew so prodigiously that they 

 reached eight feet in every direction from a single 

 root; and the potatoes they bore grew on long 

 stems or runners which spread nearly as far. 



[299] 



