ON THE POTATO 



nary Burbank but much larger and coarser, and 

 produced in great abundance. Next year they were 

 introduced through a San Francisco firm. 



But the potato did not differ sufficiently from 

 the Burbank to maintain its individuality, and it is 

 not now known as a separate variety. 



My most interesting hybridizing experiments 

 have been with the wild or half wild species of 

 potato that are indigenous to various parts of sub- 

 tropical and tropical America. An account of 

 some of these experiments wa« given in Chapter 9 

 of Volume II, 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 valuable 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 (Solanum 

 maglia) with the common potato through which a 

 vine was produced that bore a remarkable fruit, 

 were cited at some length. 



Interesting Hybrids 



Here I may refer a little more in detail to 

 results of this hybridizing experiment that were 

 not mentioned in the earlier chapter. 



The Darwin potato is a slender, erect-growing 

 plant, bearing a tuber the flesh of which is usually 

 bright yellow in color, and much subject to decay. 



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