United States or Syria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She soon began to feel low-spirited and restless, while, like a potato-plant in a dark cellar, she put forth long runners towards the light, and no light was to be found. This homely simile ought to be forgiven, because it is such a good one. Peter was getting too old for her teaching.
But he did not see the spell which Oh-I-Am had placed by his door. What he did see was a great potato-plant which had sprung up suddenly close to his window, and was springing up farther still, high, high, and higher. "Good gracious me!" cried Wry-Face in a rage, "I never planted a potato-plant there, not in my whole life! Now I should just like to know what you are doing by my window?"
The singular circumstance observed by Meyer, that the Torula of yeast, though an indubitable plant, still flourishes most vigorously when supplied with the complex nitrogenous substance, pepsin; the probability that the Peronospora is nourished directly by the protoplasm of the potato-plant; and the wonderful facts which have recently been brought to light respecting insectivorous plants, all favour this view; and tend to the conclusion that the difference between animal and plant is one of degree rather than of kind, and that the problem whether, in a given case, an organism is an animal or a plant, may be essentially insoluble.
Then he went on digging, and he dug, and dug, and dug. And when he had dug for hours and hours, so that he was tired to death, the potato-plant began suddenly to dwindle and dwindle. It dwindled as fast as anything, the leaves disappeared, and the stem disappeared and all the horrid stretching arms. They sank down, down, and down, till at last there was nothing left at all but a big brown potato!
The potato-plant took no notice, but went on climbing high, high, and higher; and ever so far above he heard a tiny faint voice crying: "Here I am, Wry-Face, here I am!" "Well, I never did!" cried Wry-Face, and he began to weep; for he saw that the potato-plant would climb up to his roof and round his chimney and he would never be able to get rid of it. And he wept and wept.
Flat or plane blades with decurrent margins constitute another character. This variety, however, does not concern our present discussion. The upright type has stiff and self-sustaining stems and branches, resembling rather a potato-plant than a tomato. Hence the name Lycopersicum solanopsis or L. validum, under which it is usually described.
At last he went in, and took his pie out of the oven, and set it in the pantry, for it was quite done. And he found a spade, and went out, and began to dig and dig at the root of the potato-plant. But his digging did not seem to make any difference; and the evening began to grow darker. Wry-Face fetched his little lamp, which is named Bright-Beauty, and which always burns without flickering.
In those parts where poverty is every where apparent, we cannot wonder at this importunity; but we are justly surprised when we find it in these fruitful valleys, which offer every thing that man can require; where the inhabitants are well clothed, and where their stone dwellings look cheerful and commodious; where corn, the grape- vine, the fig and mulberry tree, and even the valuable potato-plant, which cannot flourish throughout the greater part of Syria on account of the heat and the stony soil, are found in abundance.
Word Of The Day