70 | ASSEMBLY 
Merch. tubers, Small tubers, 
Fifty sprouts, laid horizontal........... 13 1-2 lbs. 2 1-2 lbs. 
Fifty sprouts, set upright......... ih Sone HOS 4 lbs. 
%. May 20, made 12 potato slips, and inserted the leaf stems up to 
the first pair of leaflets ; also a second dozen, inserting the leaf stems 
so as to bring the first pair of leaflets below the ground. In June, 
transferred to the garden. ‘The leaves of the majority showed life — 
during the whole summer, but no growth; the roots, however, ex- 
tended vigorously. The potato can be slipped at any portion of the 
leaf stem, although it slips more freely at the axils. 
8. May 26, potatoes that were peeled very thickly and planted in 
dry sand formed shoots from the amputated eyes; others planted in 
moist soil failed to shoot. A potato, from which the eyes had been re- 
moved for planting, formed shoots which issued from the cavities, On 
August 2 dug potatoes from which the eyes had been removed in the 
spring. ‘I‘hese had produced a small crop of tubers, and the seed 
pieces were almost as sound as ever. Miniature twhers or callosities 
were formed in the bottom of the hollows from whence the eyes had 
been removed, as also on the cut surfaces, especially along the line 
which marks the cambium region, and in one case even in the center 
‘of the tuber. 
9. August 29 we found a potato stalk in the garden with one tuber 
growing from the axil of’a leaf above ground. On September 1 a po- 
tato top, which had been pulled up and thrown on the ground on Au- 
gust 23, was found with some of the leaves dead, others green, and ten 
tubers formed upon the stem in theaxilsof leaves. ‘T’hese tubers were 
from a half to three-quarters inch in diameter. ‘The specimen, pre- 
served in alcohol, is now in our museum. 
10. May 30 we placed a box frame two feet square about a hill of 
potatoes, worked some phosphate about the hill, and then filled the 
box with light soil, leaving the extrenuty of the potato plant protruding 
above the surface. During the season, as the potato plant extended 
in growth, additional boxes were added, until finally it had been forced 
upward by a hill four feet two inches high. The plant bloomed June 
19, when the surface inside the box was twenty-two inches from the 
ground outside. On September 21 the boxes were taken away one by 
one, and the earth carefully removed. ‘The stalk was found to have 
neither branched nor rooted, and just above the seed one potato weigh- 
ing two and three-eighths ounces was found, and two of the size of 
peas. Evidently the whole strength of the plant had been spent in 
maintaining the upward growth forced upon it, ; 
11. On July 11, by means of a cork-borer, a core coincident with 
the axis of the potato was removed. Vegetation occurred July 19. A 
similar potato, planted alongside, vegetated on July 22. 
12. About June 10 some potatoes in a box in the shop-cellar were 
scalded by pouring upon them boiling water from the spout of a tea- 
kettle. On July 20 an examination showed that the shoots had been 
killed or injured, and a curious growth had taken place.. In many 
tubers very numerous shoots had started from each eye — in one 
case as many as 103 on a single potato, and in one case twenty-five 
