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I was offered two alternatives, either march to the church and stand to attention for the duration of the service or opt for fatigue duties; twice I chose the former but then decided that peeling potatoes gave me the opportunity to vent my frustrations on the poor tubers, slicing them into cubes or sculpting faces on them.
Although the mischief which is recited above occurred from the root having been purchased at market, I do not know of any vegetable in common use likely to be confounded with this. It might by chance be mistaken for the smaller tubers of Jerusalem artichoke. In foliage it comes near to the other species of Aconitum, and to the perennial Larkspurs.
Sweet potatoes are not grown by direct cutting of the tuber as the ordinary potato is, but the tubers are put in January or later in a hot bed and the sprouts are taken off for planting when the ground becomes warm and all danger of frost is over in the locality.
"Did a mole spoil them, Daddy?" "No, but the potatoes have grown as large as they ever will be, and, there being no more need of the vine, it is drying up. It has gone to seed, just as a dandelion goes to seed, in a way, though we call the potatoes 'tubers' instead of seed.
We have gone on growing potatoes over and over again from the tubers alone, and hardly ever from seed, till the whole constitution of the potato kind has become permanently enfeebled by old age and dotage. Odd as it may sound to say so, all the potato vines in a whole field are often, from the strict biological point of view, parts of a single much-divided individual.
Their food, which consisted of tubers, bulbs, and fruits, was to me inexpressibly disagreeable, but nothing offended them so much as to show dislike to it. I was cuffed by the women and kicked by the men because I would not swallow it. I lay on the floor that night hardly able to move, but I slept a good deal, and woke a little refreshed.
Several more days passed by during which we came to three spots where we were able to obtain a sufficient amount of water to satisfy ourselves and our thirsty animals. Sometimes for miles together not a drop could be procured, and had it not been for the tubers, and the little red melons I have described, the horses and our patient ox must have perished.
First, the potatoes were to be washed for tomorrow's dinner. He filled the dishpan full of water, dumped the sand-laden tubers in, and attacked them with a brush in vigorous relief at the change from deadening inactivity.
Engrossed in his purpose, thinking only of regaining possession of the girl, the mother of his man-child, he shunned all contest with the great beasts which crossed his path, and fled without shame from those which undertook to hunt him. He would risk no doubtful battle. He satisfied his hunger on wild honey, and the ripe fruits and tubers with which the forest abounded at this season.
The new kinds of potatoes are produced from the seed not the tubers of the old varieties, and the seed, when fully vitalized and capable of germination, may be assumed to contain the maximum potentiality for transmission of the active principle to the tubers immediately descended from it.
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