POTATO-TOMATO PLANT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 797, 21 April 1910, Page 8

POTATO-TOMATO PLANT.

. SUCCESSFUL .COMBINATION. ■'■:''■' In an artiole on Irish blight; in to-/ matoes, recently, the Victorian vegetable \ pathologist, Mr. D. M'Alpine,. stated,' as , snowing the closeness of the relationship' " between 1 the potato and the tomato/ that the one could be grafted on to. the other 60 effectively-that both tabeirs arid fruit .'■'. wonld bo produced by: the same plant. ■ The history of this" plant is recorded by Dr. Eorl Snell as follows .-—Potatoes were ■planted in pots on June 1, and on June ,19 one ef the young potato haulms which -.'• -had developed three snoots.'was .cat across, -.'-' and each of the. shoots had .a. young .■ tomato plant grafted on' to it; ,Tho graft-, >ing was done in - manner':by\ ; On July i, the plants were /removed from the pots arid planted■' 6iit Sin 1 ' the garden, where they remained/ until ! ithey ripened. 'One of the', plants, at ..the end of October, was bearing 18 tomatoes, and 11 The foliage was almost exclusively that-. of the tomato, and ithfise' leaves supplied the nourishment, not only for the tomato,-but also for tho potato. Thus, from the same nutritive / material, two quite part* of different plants were'nourished—tho succulent, fleshy fruit of the tomato and the , firm starchy tubers of the potato. There was no blending of the properties.of the .two. : Just as, in-the .case ■ of a peach 6hoot grafted 'on the footed stem of a plum, the shoot continues to develop the .leaves, flowers, and fruits of the peach, it lives;'.'-and if a., shoot'of the plum stock were allowed, to grow, even after 20 yeaTs'.union with the peach, it would be found to produce ■ only .the • normal leaves, flowers, and fruits of?a plum."'" ■;■'.'.' ' ' : '" '•'. '■' ■' ' ■■'.'■