POTATO MAGIC.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 677, 13 June 1914, Page 2

POTATO MAGIC.

AERIALiPRODUCTIOJN OF TUBERS EXPERIMENTS IN DARK ROOMS. LIMITLESS POSSIBILITIES. Recently it was stated that someone had found a new way in which to raise potatoes. It was asserted that he first placed a layer of potatoes at the bottom of a cellar bin, then a layer of manure, another layer of potatoes, thus filling the bin with successive strata. Then all he had to do a few months later wag to dig into this bin and take out new potaties. This story seemed incredible, but Professor Edward F. Bigelow, an Englishman, amplifies it with some other even more instructive experiences, from which we quote. He say?: — *

From time to time I have since received similar reports uf new pota toes growing on an old Dotato, as for example, when one of th 9 tubers had rolled away from the cellar bin and got stranded under a plank walk or under a barrel, .• where it was later found in the act of raising more of its kind without human help. I have also heard of farmers who have grown potatoes between layers of straw in the fields, but here the tops of the plants came to the sunlight, and the leaves were available for their proper work. As to these cases, my informant told me that the custom is to put a layer of straw on the ground, or even the poorest of sandy or rocky soil, then a layer of manure, finally planting the potatoes on that manure and covering them with another layer of straw. I have it on good authority that potatoes can be raised in that manner, and from my own e tperiments with the tubers grown in a dark chamber, I am convinced that all these tales contain a germ of truth that will some day be utilised in changing and modifying our methods of cultivating potatoes. The potato is certainly a mysterious product of the plant world, and the more one investigates the subject the mora suggestive is the information that the potato will supply. About a year ago a heart-shaped potato was sent to me on account of its novelty of form. That potato remained in my laboratory for several months until it was thoroughly dry. I kept it to show visitors as an interesting freak of nature. About the first of August I made some experiments to ascertain how much life was left in that potato, and what would be its response to the application of moisture.

ASTONISHING AND PROMPT RESULTS. The potato was placed in excelsior —a cheap kind of mattress stuffing —in an ordinary flower pot. It was watered daily. Within three weeks it had so grown that it burst the pot, and potatoes h2d begun to form all around it. And, even more astonishing, the stems put out "above ground," or above the excelsior that surrounded it, potatoes as thrifty in appearance as those on any ordinary underground stem. The conclusion then that the ordinary tube is solely a growth on an underground stem is partly incorrect, for this experiment demonstrated that a tuber may be formed on a stem above ground if grown in darkness. In other words, it would seem that the ground has nothing to do with the formation of tuber, and the definition should be modified to specify that the stem shall be grown in darkness whether above the ground or below the ground. Yet that definition may not be absolutely correct, either, because Luther Burbank in some of his experiments has been able to grow "aerial" potatoes. That might be a difficult feat to perform with all kinds of potatoes if grown in the open field but I am convinced from these and other experiments, that potatoes may be produced as easily above ground as below ground, the necessary being darkness.

My heart-shaped potato was SURROUNDED BY NOTHING but excelsior, and supplied with, nothing but water, yet it produced nearly its own weight in potatoes. Moreover, I Btill had the original potato, and it was not a decayed, soft, flabby mass, as ore might imtgine from the old p'otatoes usually seen in the hills of the garden, but crisp and jfirm, and not even so much shrivelled as it was when placed in the excelsior. The water bad restored it to its normal condition of a really handsome potato, apparently as cookable as it had ever been. Better still, there were with it eight other good sized potatoes and two smaller ones, as fine and self-respecfting in appearance as one might see in any hill in the garden. But owing to the new growth the pot was a wreck. Now arises tha question: Where did the potato obtain this increased material; how did it transform its food, nut having any leaves; and would it be possible to raise potatoes in a bin without even the application of manure? THESE ARE SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. The potato is as important a part of the food of the human race and ot some of the lower animals as are corn, apples, and other productions of the field. It would be marvellous as well as convenient, if one could pack away an apple or 8n ear of corn in shavings, and later >find two apples or two ears of corn. Why should it „be less surprising in a potato? This tuber under experiment remained in good condition and produced not one mors but ten more, the mass of the ten being fully equal to that of the original. Why not take the Banie potato and raise another set from it? Why not put a hundred bushels of potatoes on the floor among shavings, spread ecxelsior cr shavings over them, sprinkle them every day with water and a little later find two hundred bushels? What will work with one notato should work with a hundred bushels.

I am convinced that there are yet valuable, unexplored realms not only in the. rasing of new potatoes from other potatoes, but in raising them from seed rather than from the tubers. Already we have obtained some interesting results bv the unusual methods of growing potatoes from the seed of the tomato-like fruit occasionally found on the stems. Now and then the statement is made that the potato has learned that it need not go to the trouble of prepaing itself by the tubers. But when we make the assertion that the potaio has di3Covered this, are we not opening up a tremendously big vista? We are venturing into that realm recently touched upon by Professor Ganong when h 6 ascribed to all plants an intelligence similar to that of human beings. ' "I believe," said Professor Ganong, "that the evidence now accumulating is sufficient to show that the same principle which actuates intelligence also actuates all the workirga of Nature; or ALL LIVING MATTER THINKS,! though only the portion thereof which enters into the brain of man is aware that it thinks. Our intelligence is a kind of epitomised ex.pession of the principles underlying the operations of Nature, very much as mathematics is an epitomised expression of the relations of number, or as the daily newspaper is an epitomised expression of the doings of civilisation. And this I mean not as a metaphor, but as a serious scietific hypothesis." Shall we have by an by a psychology of the potato? Shall we have the potato laughing at us becauss for all these years we have been in a roundabout, complicated, laborious way, securing a that the plant, if left alone, would have accomplished better and more easily? If the potato, in common with other plant 3, has an intelligence no different in quality, though manifestly lass specialised and smaller in quantity than that of the higher forms cf life,who shall say how much the familiar tuber may tell us when we decide to regard it as an intelligent being?