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Show NEWSPAPER . HEMORRHAGE. We clip the following from our usually us-ually sane contemporary "The Inter-Mountain Inter-Mountain Republican." Wc cannot blame the Republican entirely cither, as a large part of the stuff they run is just stuff they get by the job lot, and they have no time to look into its tru hfulncss or sec whether or not it constitutes common sense. Besides they have possibly been in the news-paper news-paper business long enough to have ibecome blind to both of these uncommon un-common elements. Here is the clipping: clip-ping: Man With the Hoc Not Needed To Harvest New Potato Crop. Watcrbury, Conn., Aug. 16. Some experiments recently conducted successfully suc-cessfully by Manuel Wilson of Wol-cott, Wol-cott, in which he raised potatoes under un-der and above ground on the same vine or bush, arc destined to revolutionize revolu-tionize the potato industry. New York City alone consumes more than a million bushels yearly. Mr. Wilson is known as- an inventor of fertilizers and has won a name as ia farmer of wide information in regard to vegetables. veget-ables. ITc has the new potatoes growing above and below ground, the one not in the least diminishing the other. Next year he promises to go extensively exten-sively into the culture of the bush variety. Mr. Wilson sr.ys the new potatoes po-tatoes will cut the cost of the tubers in half to poor people. In future the potato, he says, will be grown in the backyards or indoors like roses, a- room growing enough for a small family. The new "product may be boiled .in five minutes and baked1 in eight minutes. The potato is a cross between the Beauty of Hebron He-bron and the Delaware. "In order that this new hybrid may be protected from the burning rays of the sun, nature has givdn it an extra thick skin," declares Mr. Wilson. "It is well known that such a potato without a thick skin would be prac- tically useless because of the strange taste which underground potatoes after af-ter being burned by the sun have. Mine arc finely flavored and should give to the public the most ideal potato po-tato we have ever yet had." Just now in addition to his bush-raisc-cf potato, Mr. Wilson has on exhibition ex-hibition a field of hybrid corn, the union of two, which exceeds the best early corn by about a fortnight in fruition and which possesses all the superior qualities of both the hybrid parents'. Another curious product B which he has this year raised on his I farnn is a combination tomato and po- tato plant, the spuds growing as us- I ual at the root of the plant, the tops 1 of the vines ibeing covered with large f and beautiful ripe tomatoes. I The farmer is a devotee of Luther Biirbank, the California hybridist. Wc hardly know where to begin. The article is so plainly "newspaper science" that it hardly needs answering. answer-ing. The article hails from Watcrbury, Watcr-bury, Connecticut, and it has all the earmarks of a brand of timepiece wc have learned to associate with "Wat-orbury." "Wat-orbury." Wilson has .not got any humanity saver, he has got some cheap newspaper notoriety, and that is what he probably went after, so the "potato" has served its purpose. It is about the most useful purpose it ever will serve. The potato is an underground un-derground stem and is different from stems that grow above ground because be-cause 'the sun is kept from it. It is made valuable as a food because of I its difference from stems that arc exposed ex-posed to the sunlight. When the underground un-derground stem gets above ground it immxxfiatcly begins to partake of the characteristic of other above ground stems. When it begins to do this its value as a fo'bd is lost. Wilson cleverly clev-erly says that Mother Nature has prevented pre-vented this change by giving to it a thick skin. She would have to wrap a blanket around it to prevent the change. His claim is manifestly impossible. im-possible. He is going to have it grow in back yards and flower gardens like the rose. Wc hardly look for the day when this will happen. The potato po-tato is not a very beautiful plant. We hate to sec the rose bed pass. Wc don't want to see the day come when the parlor will be adorned with a pot of nice, big, husky looking Rural New Yorkers, or when the dubantee vill waft herself into the ball room v 1 a large spud pinned in her hair. Wilson's Wil-son's dreams are merely mental dyspepsia. |