Page:Treatise on Cultivation of the Potato.djvu/16

 has in this case been drawn, and that, under ordinary circumstances, a very large portion of the soluble matter of the old tubers is employed in the formation of the new; for I have proved by experiments purposely made, that the vital union, and community of circulating fluid, between the old tuber and the plant which has sprung from it, is not so soon dissolved.

Some potatoes of rather large size and early habit were placed in such situations that the fibrous roots only of the plants entered into, or were in contact with the soil. Thus circumstanced, an abundant blossom appeared, and seeds would have been produced; but both the blossoms and the runners which would have formed young tubers, were alike removed.

The old tubers, though fully exposed to the sun and air, still retained life, and were obviously supplied with moisture by the stems, which had sprung from them; and the result was ultimately just what I had anticipated. The plants, after many frustrated efforts to produce blossoms and tubers upon every part of their branches, at last threw their sap back into the old tubers; and a numerous crop of young tubers was suspended from the buds, or eyes, of the old. This did not occur till autumn; and therefore the vital union must have subsisted through the whole summer; and I entertain but very little doubt, that such a union subsists under ordinary circmstances, till almost the whole of the soluble and organisable matter of the old tubers has been absorbed by the new. To what extent this occurs is, however, a point of little consequence: the important fact afof [sic] the crop being increased by the employment of large sets has been proved by accurate experiments, in many successive seasons."

may have been the amount of the advantages or injury which the British Empire has sustained by the very widely-extended culture of the potato, it is obvious that under present existing circumstances it must continue to be very extensively cultivated; for though it is a calamity to have a numerous population who are compelled by poverty to live chiefly upon potatoes, it would certainly be a much greater calamity to have the same population without their having potatoes to eat.