42 GEOEGE JOHN EOMANES 1873- 



have consumed a great deal of time and energy, I have 

 done my best to keep Pangenesis in the foreground. 



The proximate success of my grafting is all that I 

 can desire, although, of course, it is as yet too early 

 in the year to know what the ultimate success will 

 be. I mean that, although I cannot yet tell whether 

 the tissue of one variety is affecting that of the other, 

 I have obtained intimate adhesion in the great 

 majority of experiments. Potatoes, however, are an 

 exception, for at first I began with a method which I 

 thought very cunning, and which I still think would 

 have been successful but for one little oversight. The 

 method was to punch out the eyes with an electro- 

 plated cork-borer, and replace them in a flat-bottomed 

 hole of a slightly smaller size made with another 

 instrument in the other tuber. The fit, of course, 

 was always perfect ; but what I went wrong in was not 

 having the cork-borers made of the best steel ; for 

 after I got about one hundred potatoes planted out, 

 I found that the inserted plugs did not adhere. I 

 therefore tried some sections with an exceedingly 

 sharp knife that surgeons use for amputating, and 

 the surfaces cut with this always adhered under 

 pressure. The knife, however, must be set up in a 

 guide, in order to get the surfaces perfectly flat. Next 

 year I shall get cork-borers made of the same steel 

 as this knife is made of, and then hope to turn out 

 graft-hybrids by the score. Even this year, however, 

 a great many of my potatoes are coming up, so I hope 

 that some of the eyes may have struck. I think it 

 is desirable to get some easy way of experimenting 

 with potatoes (such as the cork-boring plan), and one 



