Finger and Toe in Root Crops. 
131 
was not near so great as tliat observed in tlie parsnip. Of the 
first crop all the specimens manifested a disposition to send up 
several heads from the crown and most of them ran to seed, the 
roots were much forked, and but little inclined to increase tissue ; 
however, the most likely ones were reserved for future growth, 
and, as in the parsnips, the second crop was certainly improved, 
the crowns of many displayed but one bud, and the roots, though 
still forked, became more succulent and enlarged ; the third 
year's growth, however, like that of the parsnip, was a reversion 
to the wild state. Still the progress with the carrot as well as the 
parsnip was quite sufficient to show that it is within any one's 
power to renew both of these plants in a cultivated form from 
wild specimens by acting in conformity with the physiology of 
their growth ; in short, as will presently be shown, not by grow- 
ing them in soil suitable for them as wild plants, but by con- 
stantly surrounding them xcith circumstances as totally oj)j)osite as 
possible. 
But besides this, these experiments seemed to point out the 
way to a solution of the mystery of finger-and-toe in root crops, 
to which the parsnips and carrots of our garden culture have 
always been peculiarly liable. Tlie time and mode of sow- 
ing the seed would naturally tend to an enlargement of the roots 
in the best examples of the resulting crop, inasmuch as spring 
sowing induces a more determinate biennial character ; and as the 
roots of the wild plants are always more or less branched, it is 
but reasonable to suppose that the ramifications as well as the 
main root would equally put on cellular tissue in the majority of 
examples ; and it is only by putting aside the cleanest roots for 
seeding — indeed, taking care to get your seed from plants winch 
possess the qualities you require to the greatest possible extent — that 
you are at all likely to be successful either in ameliorating wild 
plants or in getting pure stock from acknowledged cultivated 
varieties. 
A tap-root {fusiform) with a clear and unhranched outline is 
not natural to the parsnip or carrot, but can only be attained 
from wild plants by careful cultivation. May we not then con- 
clude that the branching in cultivated roots (finger-and-toe) 
results from a reversion of these to a greater or less extent to their 
original wild form ? In other words, inasmuch as in the passage 
from the wild to the cultivated state the branching of the roots 
becomes more conspicuous, may we not therefore conclude that, 
as finger-and-toe is a mark of cultivation in wild plants, so this 
deformity in cultivated plants is an evidence of reversion to 
wildness ? These remarks, then, tend to show that the question 
is one entirely belonging to the inquirer into Vegetable Physi- 
ology ; and it is, therefore, no wonder that chemical analysis, 
K 2 
