On the Cultivated Potato. 
28i 
same year.* It is not profitable here to do more than just to 
touch on that which is the highest possible problem — the essence 
or origin of life ! f Beale says the green chlorophyll X masses 
are urged on by the actively moving particles of bioplasm : he 
has most interesting drawings showing the potato cells and the 
process of the deposition of starch cells. An interesting study 
of the survival of the fittest was made by Mr. Baker § at 
Kew, when the power of survival of certain herbaceous plants 
was thus classified : (1.) Tendency to spread spontaneously, 
and encroach on neighbours. (2.) Fill-up, but do not spread. 
(3.) Those that die out and disappear. 
Mr. Baker, at my request, kindly made for me the following 
extract from the ' Philosophical Transactions of 1806,' in regard 
to which he observes — this experiment is of the essence of the 
inquiry, and cultivators should bear it constantly in mind : — 
"Every gardener knows that early varieties of the potato 
never afford either blossoms or seeds ; and I attributed this 
peculiarity to privation of nutriment, owing to the tubers 
being formed preternaturally early, and thence drawing off that 
portion of the true sap which in the ordinary course of nature 
is employed in the formation and nutrition of blossoms and 
seeds. 
" I therefore planted in the last spring some cuttings of a 
very earl y variety of the potato, which had never been known to- 
blossom, in garden-pots, having heaped the mould as high as I 
could above the level of the pot, and planted the portion of the 
root nearly at the top of it. When the plants had grown a 
few inches high, they were secured to strong sticks which had 
been fixed erect in the pots for that purpose, and the mould 
was then washed away from the base of the stems by a strong 
current of water ; each plant was now suspended in air, and had 
no communication with the soil in the pots except by its fibrous 
roots : and as these are perfectly distinct organs from the runners 
which generate and feed the tuberous roots, I could readily 
prevent the formation of them. Efforts were soon made by 
every plant to generate runners and tuberous roots, but they were 
* 'Journal,' E. A. S. E, vol. xix. p. 10. 
t 'Bealu on the Microscope.' 
X Chlorophyll, the green colouring matter of plants, very difficult to get pure, 
and its chemical composition is not known : obtained by soaking green leaves in 
alcohol, ether, &c., but it does not dissolve in water; occurs in the so-called 
"chloropiiyll grains," which are merely altered forms of the protoplasm (or living 
principle) of plants ; chlorophyll oidy becomes green under the presence of light. 
Bentley's 'Manual of Botany,' 1882. Churchill. 
§ J. G. Baker, Esq., F.R.S., Royal Herbarium, Kew, in 'Journal of Botany,' 
Sept. 188;]. 't he editor observes, in reference to Baker &- Newbold's edition of 
Watson s ' Topographical Botany,' London, Quaritch, 1883 : " Mr. Baker, with a 
critical mind, posse.sses the faculty of generalisation." 
