1914 . 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKEH 
13 
Ruralisms 
POTATOES RUNNING OUT. 
I am advised by neighbors not to use 
my own potatoes for seed next year. They 
say potatoes “run out” if grown on the 
same type of soil for more than two years. 
What is your opinion about this? 
No. Stoughton, Mass. A. N. S. 
The weight of experience is greatly in 
favor of frequently procuring seed po¬ 
tatoes from localities where they are es¬ 
pecially well grown rather than to rely 
on home saving from year to year. Un¬ 
less your variety of potatoes is particu¬ 
larly suited to your soil and climate there 
will likely be deterioration as the seasons 
go on. Potatoes “run out” locally not so 
much because they are grown for success¬ 
ive years in the same type of soil as from 
the cumulative effect of adverse climatic 
conditions, which may not favor such 
thorough development of the tubers as fits 
them for seed purposes, though they may 
be entirely suitable for the food market. 
The northern tier of States—Maine, Ver¬ 
mont, New York, Wisconsin and the Dako¬ 
tas—appear to have a monopoly in the 
production of seed potatoes, as the ex¬ 
cess of sunlight and general climatic 
range during the growing season in these 
latitudes admirably suit the potato plant, 
enabling it to store the tubers with the 
energy needed to make vigorous growth 
when planted in less favorable localities. 
There is apparently just as good pota¬ 
to soil south of the forty-third parallel of 
latitude as north of it, but potatoes do 
not mature as well for seed purposes as 
in the North, except possibly in Colorado 
and other elevated regions of the central 
plateaus where conditions of sunlight 
and temperature range in Summer that 
obtain in the North are practically dupli¬ 
cated. Small potato plantings for home 
use may be kept for a considerable time 
to a satisfactory standard of production 
by careful selection of seed tubers from 
the best hills or plant, but in a larger 
way it is generally profitable to procure 
seed stocks from reliable northern sources. 
V. 
THE GIANT AMARYLLIS. 
A catalogue for 1913 lists “Burbank’s 
Amaryllis.” It asks a good price, says 
they are an extra good thing and that 
the blooms are one foot across. Do you 
believe this statement? Do you know 
anything about them? I grow these bulbs 
for my own use, have a lot of my own 
seedlings. I have bulbs from California 
and I have bloomed my own seedlings, 
have had bloom seven inches across but 
never saw nor heard of one before one 
foot across. N. j. P. 
The show Amaryllis or Hippeastrum, as 
the botanists term it, is one of the most 
highly developed of flowering plants, hav¬ 
ing been under practically continuous hy¬ 
bridization and critical selection for more 
than 100 years. Seeds are rarely pro¬ 
duced under cultivation without careful 
hand pollination, as the flowers have be¬ 
come so large and open that the natural 
agencies of wind and insect life no long¬ 
er appear to effect the transfer of pollen 
from the anthers to the stigmatic sur¬ 
faces. It being necessary to fertilize the 
blooms artificially growers naturally make 
the most desirable combinations in the 
flower, and the result is that nearly all 
commercial strains are good, and the in¬ 
heritance tendencies of the better forms 
so marked that anyone can grow fine 
seedlings if he use's high-class seed and 
pollen parents. The modern pot Amaryl¬ 
lis is indeed a magnificent cultural tri¬ 
umph. Every.strain worthy of the name 
should include plants producing blooms 
quite 12 inches across when grown un¬ 
der congenial conditions, but the largest 
flowers are not always the handsomest, 
as they are occasionally lacking in sub¬ 
stance and harmonious coloring. An ex¬ 
hibit of 2,000 of these gorgeous monsters, 
the result of crossing a few particularly 
fine imported varieties, in one of the 
greenhouses of the Department of Agri¬ 
culture at Washington last Winter, cre¬ 
ated quite a sensation, many judges think¬ 
ing the blooms surpassed anything hither¬ 
to'shown. There were scores of plants 
with blooms a foot across, but these some¬ 
times failed to elicit as great admiration 
as smaller ones of better form and bright¬ 
er colors. 
Those who have visited Luther Bur¬ 
bank's California garden will credit him 
with being an excellent cultivator of 
his specialties. It is entirely probable 
that he has grown seedling Amaryllis 
with blooms as large as advertised, but 
the best kinds in the experience of all 
growers are often slow to propagate, and 
do not quickly find their way into com¬ 
merce. The writer has grown the Bur¬ 
bank strain of Amaryllis procured from 
dealers, and found it of only ordinary 
merit. Others who have tried these var¬ 
ieties from different sources report that 
it is “good stock, but nothing to brag 
of.” V. 
POLLENIZATION OF CORN. 
Has there ever been a theory advanced, 
regarding the sex of the rows of grain 
on an ear of corn? To my mind it has 
struck me for some time that there is 
the closest affinity as male and female, 
each male row pollenizing the next row 
exclusively and none other. For instance, 
I have never, in counting the rows on 
corn, found any but even rows, eight. 10, 
12 and so on, as high as 24 rows. \Yhy 
not nine, 11, etc, if every other row was 
not male and female? Again, it is al¬ 
ways strongely marked, where an ear 
is defective it is never one row missing, 
but two rows will be equally short, stop¬ 
ping exactly together. n. B. G. 
James Island, S. C. 
The fecundation of maize or corn is 
effected by the pollen cells produced by 
the tassels or male inflorescence falling 
on the exposed stigmatic surfaces of the 
silks or styles, which represent the 
female flowers, as in corn the two sets 
of organs are developed far apart. A 
pollen tube grows down inside the silk 
and fertilizes the ovule or embryonic cell 
at the base, which later grows into a 
seed or kernel of corn. The seeds or 
grains of corn have nothing to do with 
each other in the way of pollination. 
Each in effect contains a miniature sex¬ 
less plant, wrapped in protective coatings 
and attached to the standing endosperm 
or reserve food supply needed to main¬ 
tain its early growth, and can in no way 
affect its neighbors in the adjoining rows. 
Corn is a monocotyledonous plant with 
one seed leaf and solitary leaves, alter- 
nately arranged on the stem, but the seed 
rows on the cob or spadix are binary in 
arrangement, occurring always in pairs. 
Thus we have four pairs of kernel rows 
in eight-rowed corn up to 11 pairs on 
22 rows in some extreme varieties, but 
no instances are know of ears having odd 
numbers of rows. The even numbering 
of the rows is a characteristic inherent 
in corn and has nothing to do with pol¬ 
lination. v. 
AGRICULTURAL EXPEDITION TO BRAZIL 
The Bureau of Plant Industry is send¬ 
ing an expedition to Brazil, which will 
include P. II. Dorsett, Plant Introducer 
of the Office of Plant Introduction, Wil¬ 
son Topenoe, agricultural explorer and 
A. D. Shamel, physiologist of the Office 
of Pomological and Horticultural Inves¬ 
tigations. 
Mr. Shamel’s remarkable discovery that 
there are at least nine distinct strains or 
types of the Bahia navel orange repre¬ 
sented in the California orchards has 
raised the question as to whether or not 
Mr. William Saunders’ importation in 
1S70 brought in the best navel in exist¬ 
ence at Bahia and whether this remark¬ 
able variety has varied in Bahia as it 
has in California. . 
It is hoped that Mr. Shamel, with the 
assistance of the other members of the 
expedition will be able to make a thor¬ 
ough investigation of the matter. So 
little is known of the plant resources of 
this great unexplored area of Southern 
Brazil, that the expedition may be ex¬ 
pected to discover new forms of valuable 
plants which are not in the literature. 
The high plateaus visited by occasional 
frosts, and the borders of the large arid 
regions surrounded by sub-tropical for¬ 
ests are habitats where forms are likely 
to be found which will be subject to ac¬ 
climatization in our Southern States. 
The Department states that the rapidly 
growing Mate industry, the wild fibre 
plant Caroa, the myrtaceous fruits such 
as the Jaboticaba, the l’assifloras, the 
bamboos, and tlie rubber plant, are a few 
of the many things which have provision¬ 
ally been put on the program for investi¬ 
gation. The expedition goes out fully 
equipped to get natural size photographs 
of fruits, and herbarium material, as well 
as living seeds and plants of everything 
worthy of introduction and it will con¬ 
fine its attention to the Provinces of 
Bahia, Rio, Minas, and Sao Paulo. This 
must be considered a preliminary study 
of the gigantic problem of utilizing for 
American farmers and fruit growers of 
the Southern States the valuable plants 
of Southern Brazil. 
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