POTATO. 



191 



green and very acrid. The, seeds ara white, kidney-shaped and 

 flat. The seed is never sown except for producing new varie- 

 ties. Seedlings vary greatly and often do not obtain full size 



until three years old. 

 The tubers are com- 

 monly referred to as 

 ''seed," but they snould 

 be regarded as cuttings 

 or sets; they are only 

 svrollen underground 

 branches filled with 

 starchy matter. They 

 vary much in size and 

 shape and in color of 

 skin, from white to al- 

 most black, including 

 yellow, red and blue. 

 There are a thousand 

 or more of named va- 

 rieties, but many of 

 t.-em are scarcely dis- 

 tinguishable from oth- 

 E'igtire 97— Potato plant showing- tubers and roots named kinds 



Origin of the Modern Potato. — Fifty years ago potato rot ran 

 over w^estern Euro^pe and the United States to such an extent as 

 to bring starvation in regions where potatoes were the princi- 

 pal article of diet; no one knows where the potato came from 

 that was cultivated previous to that time. Rev. Chauncey Good- 

 rich, of Utica, N. Y., urged before agricultural societies and the 

 agricultural committees of the New York legislature that potato 

 rot resulted from lowered vitality of the potato plant, due to its 

 being grown under high cultivation and in climates and soils 

 Qot wholly congenial to a sub-tropical plant, native to a small 

 section only of the earth's surface; and he claimed that the 

 way to restore its vigor would be to get varieties from the part 

 of South America that was the home of the potato. His theories 

 were laughed at by scientific men, and the legislative committee 

 told him he knew more about theology than about plant diseases. 



