3SS TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



expose their cut potatoes to tUy before i^lanting. Why do they 

 do it? If useful, it cau only be because, in drying, the albumi- 

 nous cut side acquires a sort of artificial skin. The same explan- 

 ation will account for the supposed advantage of rolling and 

 encasing the cut potatoes in plaster. 



General Beatson had made some valuable experiments at St. 

 Helena, on this subject. He thought it Avas well to keep the 

 troops stationed there in some kind of useful and healthful 

 employment. He obtained permission of the British government 

 to employ them in raising produce, and, writing to the Royal 

 Society, received directions how he might usefully experiment 

 upon the growth of potatoes. The report with wliich he has 

 furnished the w(U"ld states, that " the largest potato, planted 

 entire, cultivated flat, and at the depth of six inches," yielded 

 the best results. The experiments of the speaker were quite 

 confirmatory of this. He always planted potatoes six inches deep, 

 in preference to any other depth; he planted them entire, and 

 believed flat culture to be the best. 



Dr. Waterbury thought that the science of botany, which was 

 now beginning to be better understood and more usefully ajDplied, 

 would throw some light on the culture of the potato. The bota- 

 nist is fast becoming something more than a mere collector of 

 dried specimens, a kind of hay, to be packed away and labeled 

 with uncouth names. The tuber is to be regarded as a part of 

 the stem of the plant. Like other stems, it consists of a collec- 

 tion of cells; but unlike common stems, the cell membranes 

 instead of being condensed into lignine, contain within them 

 granules of starch. When the potato is planted, as it germinates, 

 the nitrogenized matter of the cell wall acting on the starch, as 

 in matting, and probably, also, in the spring vegetation of the 

 maple, converts the starch into the more soluble substance, sugar, 

 that it may be the more readily absorbed by the young plant. 



The buds, or eyes, like other stem buds, are complete plants 

 in minature, which, in the process of germination, extend their 

 roots into the surrounding mass of the tuber. They have no con- 

 nection with each other, and hence the tuber, like any other 

 portion of stem, may be divided for the purpose of propagation 

 by cuttings. 



