POTATO MAGIC.

Temuka Leader, Issue 7569, 23 May 1914, Page 6

POTATO MAGIC.

AERIAL PRODUCTION OF TUBERS. EXPERIMENTS IN DARK ROOMS. LIMITLESS POSSIBILITIES. Recently it was stated that someone had found a now way in which to raise potatoes, it was asserted that ho first placed « layer of potatoes at the bottom o! a cellar bin, then a layer of manure, another layer of potatoes, thus filling tbo bin with successive strata. Then all ho had to do a few months later was to dig into this bin and take out new potatoes. This story seemed incredible, but Professor Edward F. Bigelow, an Englishman, amplifies it with somo other even more instructive experiences, from which wo qmJto . He says: — From timd to time 1 have since received similjr reports of now potatoes growing on in old potato, as for example, when one of the tubers had rolled away from tho collar 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. 1 have also heard of fanners who have grown potatoes between layers of straw in tho fields, hut hero the tops of the plants came to the sunlight, and the leaves wore available for their proper work. As to these cases, my informant told mo 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. 1 havo it on good authority that potatoes can bo raised in that manner, and from my own experiments 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 m 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 more suggestive is tho 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 mouths until it was thoroughly dry. I kept it to show visitors as an interesting freak of Nature.

About tho 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 ol moisture. THE RESULTS WERE PROMPT AND ASTONISHING. Tho 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 grow,, that it burst the pot. and potatoes had bey;nn 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 ns 'those on any ordinary underground stem.

Tho conclusion tfiou that the ordinary tuber 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, jt would seem that the ground has nothing to do with the formation of tuber, and the definition should be modified to specify that tho stem shall be grown in darl uie.ss whether above the ground or below the ground. Yet that definition may not be absolutely correct, either, because Luther Burbank in some of his exneriiiieuts has been able to grow “aerial” potatoes. That might he a difficult feat to perform with all kinds of potatoes If grown in the open field, but I am convinced, from tlic.se and other experiments, that potatoes may lie produced as easily above ground as below ground, tho 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 of potatoes. Moreover, 1 still had the original potato, and it was not a decayed, soft, flabby mass, as one might imagine from the old potatoes usually seen in the hills of the garden, but crisp and firm, and not even so much shrivelled as it was when placed in the excelsior. Tile water had restored it to its normal condition of a really handsome potato, apparently ascookablc as it had ever been. Better still, there were with it eight other good-sized potatoes and two smaller ones, as fine and self-respecting in appearance as one might sec in any hill in the garden. But, owing to the new growth the pot was a wreck. Now arises the question, Where did the potato obtain this increased material; how did it transform its food, not having any leaves; and would it be possible to raise potatoes in a bin without even the application of manure? THESE ARE SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. Tiio potato is as important a part ol tho food of the human race and of some of the lower animals as are corn, apples, and other productions of the field. It would he marvellous, as well as convenient.' if ono could jiach away an apple or an ear of corn in shavings, and later fin dtwo apples or two ears of corn. Why should it he Jess surprising in a potato? This tuber under experiment remained in good condition and produced not ono more hub ton more, the mass of tho ten being fully equal to that of the original. _Why not take the same potato and raise another set from it? Why not put a hundred bushels of potatoes on tho floor among shavings, spread excelsior or shavings over them, sprinkle them every clay with water and a little later find two hundred bushels? What will work with one potato should work with a hundred bushels.

I am convinced that there are yet valuable, unexplored realms not only in the raising of new potatoes from other potatoes, hut in raising them from seed rather than from the tubers. Already me have obtained some interesting results bv the unusual methods of growing potatoes from tlie seed of the tomato-like fndt occasionally found on the sterna. Now and then the statement is made that the potato has learned that it. need not go to the trouble of preparing itself by he_ tubers. Rut when we make the assertion that the potato has discovered this, arc wo not opening np a tremendously big vista P We are venturing info that, realm recently touched upon by Professor Oanonw when lie. ascribed to all plants an intelligence similar to that of human beings. [( “ f believe,’’ said Professor Ganong, that tile evidence now accumulating k sufficient to show that the same principle which actuates intelligence also actuates all the workings of Nature; or. ALL LIVING FLATTER THINKS, though only tho portion thereof which enters into the brain of man is aware that it thinks. Our intelligence is a kind of epitomised expression of the manciples 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 scientific hrpqjjhesis,”-

Shall wo havo by and by a psychology j of ihu potato? Shall wo have the potato laughing at us because for al these years we havo been, in a roundabout, complicated, laborious way, securing a result that the plant, il left alone, would have accomplished better and more easily? If tho potato, in common with other plants, has an intelligence no dllleiunt in quality, though manifestly less specialised and smaller in quantity than that of tho higher Conns of life, who shall say how much tho .familiar tuber may tell us when we decide to regard it as an intelligent being?