| Show nnnuuu BUGPROOF POTATO l Massachusetts Man Produces Tubers of Great Superiority Spends Years In Experimenting with Various Vegetables and Make Many Wonderful Discoveries His Cantaloupes Are Fine Montague MassDugproof potato pota-to vines that show by analysis twice the ratio of lood products in them over the average tuber cantaloupes that run sixteen to fortyeight pounds peas that will be ready for picking in half the time that green peas usually I require corn in halt a dozen colors and of attractive tastethese things are some of the achievements things Amos N Somers pastor of the tittle Unitarian parish here who has spent years delving into the chemistry of nature and has accomplished what he believes Is a valuable thing for mankind man-kind especially in potato culture tore this is a necessity of necessities Mr Somers tells his story by sayIng say-Ing that the potato rarely matures a seed and notes that the great potato raising companies in Maine offer large sums for small measure of seed Of course everybody knows bo continued that potatoes grow Irom planting the eye of the vegetable In the ground In the spring Hybridization Hybridiza-tion by mixing the pollen is not a new thing but with the potato you cant do it for theres no pollen to mix So after many years of trying I have evolved what I call graft hybridlra tlon The problem was harder as the potato grows below the ground while fruits and many vegetables grow above and the stalks or stems can be grafted In the familiar way So one day it occurred to me to graft the sprouts together just at the surface of the ground I took two cuttings sliced them off and then tas tened them together with the bodies of the tubers touching and the two parts of the sprouts also lying close against each other Fastening these together I planted them with the ton of the graft just above the ground At the juncture of the two a new cellular tissue body grew and from this a new variety of potato grew 1 got this new varley which I call the Standard from a graft hybrid of the Green mountain and the Lady Somers named after my wife The Standard is a very smooth skin potato with eyes hardly sunken below the surface This last fact makes it an economical potato for there Is less waste in peeling it and the annlyrJs shows It has just twice the amount of foodstuff In it and twice as much starch as the average potato The average one shows 15 to 18 per cent foodstuff In bodyweight body-weight 100 of my potatoes will greatly outweigh 100 potatoes of the ordinary sort of the some size and on hunel measure the same difference occurs The Lady Somers I got from the Early Rose and the old Delaware potatoes It was my study of Darwin that started me on this I havo watched the work of ProfGeorge J Romanes of England the author of Darwinism After Darwin and have corresponded with him and I have succeeded In this where he failed Profs Oeddes and Thompson of Edinburgh are also in the same line but 1 feel I have surpassed sur-passed them in results My results were first definite four years ago after 35 years of trying The vine ol my potato has a peculiar pe-culiar odor and Is offensive to the potato bug for It never goes near thum 1 have taken bugs from plants of the usual type in the next row In 1 my potato patch and put them on the I now vines and in half an hour I can t find one and I really feel I have got bold of a bugproof potatp If BO tiata t big thing In itself for look at the expense saved the farmer in plaster and parts green and in labor Then again the roots of mypotatoes are very much longer than the average aver-age roots which of course makes them all the butter as plant feeders and as resIsters of drought This is a summary of my discoveries discover-ies and results of methods used by me In the preparation of new varies ties of lood plants especially new species of potatoes by grafthybridiza tion |
