No. 33. ] 129 
varieties having a wider range of origin. By close study these stems 
seem to be axillary, or else to appear from dormant eyes. In cases of 
monstrosity, when the tubers are borne upon the erial stems, out of 
the ground, they are usually sessile, and occupy the axils of the leaves. 
There is a tendency in the tuber in some varieties .more than in 
others to appear above the ground during growth, and when this hap- 
pens they not only sunburn, taking on a green bark appearance, but 
often the eyes start, furnishing an abnormal growth, dwarfed and 
ragged as compared with the proper growth of ripe “ seed.” 
In the case of rot, the fungus appeared this year first upon the leaves, 
and in the case of the formation of erial tubers, affected them from 
above downward, in order, as also those tubers which were ex;oged on 
the surface before reaching those buried in the soil. 
The roots of the potato extend downward, and ramify but little 
laterally as compared with their deeper development. 
The plant has lost in most varieties its habit of fruiting, although 
the blossom may abundantly appear. ‘The cause seems to be in the 
non-development of pollen. 
Varieties differ greatly in earliness, leafiness, hardiness and proli- 
ficacy. Under unfavorable conditions one variety may prosper where 
another fails. Some varieties appear more rot-resisting than others. 
When exposed to conditions favorable to germination the seed-end 
eyes of the tuber have a tendency to develop first, or if the tuber be, 
in imagination, divided into two halves across its axis, the upper half 
will develop its eves while the lower eyes remain dormant. When the 
eyes were removed from thirty potatoes, and planted in order as cut, 
nearly all the eyes grew, but out of one hundred and ninety-two butt 
third eyes sixteen failed, and out of one hundred and ninety-three 
central eyes five failed, and out of one hundred and ninety-seven seed- 
end eyes four failed, under conditions of out-of-door culture. In 
another experiment in the green-house, out of one hundred and twenty- 
six potatoes set in a warm place the eyes from the upper half alone 
grew in one hundred and twenty-one cases, upon the dividing line in 
five cases. When the eyes were planted in order as removed from five 
potatoes all but one butt-eye vegetated, and the twenty-nine eyes from 
the stem half gave at one date one hundred and forty-two inches in 
length of shoot, while the thirty-one seed-end eyes gave one hundred 
and ninety-six inches of total length of shoot. 
Under circumstances’ of out-of-door culture, with thirty potatoes 
cut into single eyes and planted in order as cut, there was slightly 
more folige to the plants from the central eyes than from the terminal 
eyes. 
In vegetation in the field, the shoots from whole potatoes used as 
seed were slower to start than were those from single eyes. 
In five duplicates in one case, and two in another, the plants from 
whole potatoes used as seed ripened their foliage in advance of the 
single eyes. ‘This trial on plats of one-tenth and one-twentieth of an 
acre. | 
In green-house trials, in warm soil, no absorption of the material of 
the seed potato was noticed in any case. We refer to the visible ab- 
sorption: After weeks of growth the potato-seed eye retained its firm- 
ness and shape, and when disintegration took place it was from decay. 
[Assem. Doc. No. 33. | 1? 
