cross-a true marriage with its consequent infusion of new elements-till at last the whole stock has become so hopelessly old and used-up that even its seedlings are now as feeble as the offspring of two wornout old parents might naturally expect to be in any species. Look for a moment at a few parallel cases elsewhere, which will help us to understand the seeming paradox of all potatoes being only part of one original and only genuine potato. The famous Canadian river-weed which came over to England some forty or fifty years ago, and has dammed up all our canals and waterways ever since with its rapidly growing masses, is an admirable illustrative example of the sort of thing I want to emphasize. For the Canadian river-weed (I mercifully spare you the infliction of its botanical name) is one of the few plants (like the date and hemp) which bear the male and female flowers on totally different individuals. Well, the plant that came across to England many years ago-they say, to a pond in the Cambridge botanical gardens reserves of material. As a rule, light is necessary to vegetation; a seed can't grow to any size in the dark, or a bough put forth green leaves; sunshine is the active dynamical agent of plant growth and plant development. But a hyacinth bulb or a potato will send forth shoots in a dark room, because these rich reserves consist of organized material already laid by, and capable of assuming the leaf-and-branch form without the immediate aid of sunshine. The hyacinth will even bud and blossom under such conditions, while the potato will push out long pale stems, which head straight for any ray of light that may happen to enter its dark cellar prison. And this consideration leads us to the true point of view of the potato, as not a seed, but a part of the same individual plant as the mother that bears it. Gardeners call the potatoes they use for planting seed potatoes; but the cut fragments are no more that than a sucker or cutting is truly a seed; they are undeveloped branches of the old potato vine. The real seed, of course, is contained in the fruit or potato apple; and genuine seed--happened to be a female specimen. No lings are from time to time procured therefrom to start fresh varieties; indeed it is in this way alone that new and improved sorts can be produced. And the difference is not, as we shall soon see, a purely technical one. On the contrary, its importance is being practically demonstrated at the present day by the gradual decay and constitutional feebleness of all potatokind all the world over. For a seedling is like a child-a genuine new individual, the product of a flower fertilized by pollen from another blossom of its own kind; and it begins life on a fresh basis for itself, full of young and sturdy vitality. But a cutting (which is what a planted potato" practically amounts to) is not a fresh young life at all; 21 male came with it, so it could never set seed in the ordinary fashion. But, thriving wonderfully in its new home, it sent out suckers or underground shoots which soon ran wild among the rivers of the fencountry; and thence, getting torn up by the bottoms of canal-boats, broken pieces were accidentally conveyed into all the other rivers and streams of England, where they took root at once and flourished everywhere like a green bay tree. Now, all these new or derivative plants are of course female, because in fact they are part and parcel of the one original old plant that came first like a new William the Conqueror to England; and no male flower of the river-weed has ever yet been observed by botanists in any part of this isle of Britain. Thousands and thousands of specimens have been carefully examined, but not a male blossom has ever been discovered here. Consequently, the weed has never set seed, and never produced any true seedlings; the whole mass of waving green foliage that now covers the beds of so many streams from Caithness to Cornwall belongs in the last resort to a single very big and wandering plant, just as truly as all the branches of an oak or a spreading ivy-bush belong to the same single individual.. 66 with the awful possibility of a potatoless universe. But why can't we go back to the fountain-head once more, and start afresh with brand-new potatoes from their native forest? Ay, there's the rub, as Hamlet justly puts it. We can't discover the fountain-head any longer. Nobody knows where the potato comes from the native forest itself is dead. The aboriginal wild potato seems as extinct in our day the wide world over as the dodo or the deinotherium. Similarly with what we call varieties or kinds in roses or strawberries. A gardener produces from seed a particular rosebush, with certain attractive individual features, which belong as distinctively to that particular bush as her beauty belongs to a particular woman. If he were to grow seedlings from it again, they might not come true,' as gardeners put it; or, in other words, they might exhibit individual traits of their own, different from the traits so much admired in their respected mother. So, to avoid that contingency, the gardener makes no seedlings This is often the way with important from his bush; he takes advantage of this food-plants. Nobody can trace with cercurious power of multiplying the selfsame tainty the ancestor of wheat or of Indian individual by mere division without any corn, the primitive father of the plantain cross of fresh blood, and "takes cut- or of the banana. The fact is, whenever tings." The flowers of these of course a plant lays by these rich stores of materemain always the same, exactly as they rial for its own use, either as seed or root would have done had the branches been or bulb or tuber, man, greedy man, is left upon the tree that bore them. With sure to divert it to his own purposes, as strawberries, in like manner, when the ruthlessly as he robs the bees of their gardener has once got a good stock from honey and the cows of the milk they have seed, he cultivates the runners, which are prepared for their calves in their own only, after all, long naked branches, that udders. Every important human foodroot and leaf at definite distances. In stuff is essentially at bottom a seed or a every case you can only produce a truly tuber; eggs in the animal world answernew individual by genuine wedlock-by ing to the one, and fatted beasts answercrossing and seeding; and, though the ing roughly to the other. Wheat, barley, life of the old much-subdivided plant may Indian corn, peas, beans, dates, and cocontinue for many, many years in special coanuts are instances in the first direction; circumstances, there comes nevertheless a potatoes, turnips, yam, beetroot are intime at last when all its force is utterly stances in the second. épuisé, and it must needs die like the old, old oak or the cedar that numbers a hundred centuries. So now see the plight to which in the case of our chief vegetable we have unconsciously reduced ourselves. We have allowed our one potato-plant to grow so old that even when we take seedlings from two of its flowers-themselves mere sisterblossoms of the same decayed and decrepit stock-the very seedlings in turn start in life with decayed constitutions, due to so much breeding in and in, and lack the vigor and vitality of true young blood. The philosophic poet of the Bab Ballads warns" elderly men of the bachelor crew" that if they insist upon committing matrimony late in life, their babes will be elderly, elderly too." That is just what has happened to the poor potato. For lack of frequent healthy crossing, the entire vitality of the race has been slowly dissipated; the entire stock has grown old together, and we stand now face to face From the very first moment, then, that the ancestral potato began to lay up starches and foodstuffs for itself in its own underground tissues, we may be perfectly sure that rodents, monkeys, and other animal enemies did their level best to circumvent its innocent design by digging them up and incontinently eating them. Presently, man, as the Red Indian, arrived upon the scene, and subjected the incipient and starchy potato to some rude cultivation. In one way, he was less destructive, no doubt, than the rodents and monkeys who had gone before him, because, while he rooted up and grubbed out more indefatigably than they, he kept a little back for "seed" for the future. He cut up his potato into many small pieces with an "eye" in each, the eye being in fact an undeveloped leaf-bud, whence branches would issue in another season. Thus he ensured in some way the continuance of the plant; but, alas! he only cared for his own squaws and papooses in the im mediate future, and took no thought for the convenience of the intrusive white man in this then remote nineteenth century. And considering how little the white man thought of his convenience some ages later, perhaps his remissness in this respect is not to be wondered at. At any rate, what the Red Indian seems to have done was just this as in almost every other case of primitive agriculture, he brought the wild plant into cultivation, and improved largely its special yield; but in so doing he destroyed its native type altogether. Whether he grubbed up all the wild ones and ate them on the spot, or whether he merely encroached upon their open feeding grounds and so crowded them out, as farms and fences are crowding out the buffalo in the Far West, does not appear; but what is certain is that the wild potato itself does not now appear either. We have lost all count of the primitive stock, so that we can't go back to it to cross it with its own degenerate descendants, or to develop anew from its barbaric tubers the succulent Regent or the Ash-leaved Kidney. When Raleigh brought the potato to Europe, it fared even worse in its new home at the hands of man than it had done in its old one. For the attention of civilized gardeners was mostly directed to producing new and better varieties-seedlings that ran to tuber exceedingly-at the expense of the general constitutional vigor. More than that; when once a good seedling was produced, everybody tried to get "seed "really tubers for planting-from that individual plant and no other, thus neglecting to keep up the older varieties. The consequence is that all the potato plants on earth are now parts of two or three individual potatoes, and may very likely be ultimately derived from a single good gardener's variety of the seventeenth or eighteenth century. When once a plant has reached that advanced stage of dotage, its fate is sealed, surely and irrevocably. Actum est de potuto. You may indeed prolong its life for a while through progressively feebler and ever feebler representatives; but, sooner or later, die it must, of pure épuisement, like the last of the Tasmanians on Norfolk Island. It is a used-up race, and nothing on earth will save it. It is worse off even than the Romans of the decadence or the moribund Byzantines, who could still inter marry with the fresh young stock of Goth or Slavonian. For it has no chance of crossing left to reinvigorate its blood. It becomes a prey to ten thousand diseases, from the fungus that caused the Irish famine to the devouring flood of the Colorado beetle. The history of this last-named aggressive host in itself beautifully though painfully illustrates one final chapter in the biography of any decadent species. The potato-bug, as it is more simply than euphoniously called in its native country, plays to the dying potato the part of the barbarian invader to the Roman empire. (Did I not promise to discourse to you of the Decline and Fall, and do you not now see how strictly appropriate, by biological analogy, was that seemingly strained and extreme metaphor ?) For many centuries the Colorado beetle, as yet unknown to fame, had fattened and thriven on the leaves of a Rocky Mountain solanum, which was not the potato, but a distant cousin of somewhat similar taste in the self-same family. It commonly happens that each species of plant in the wild state is thus preyed upon by a particular insect; and entomologists know well that the best way to catch certain rare butterflies or moths is by watching for the caterpillars on their special food-plant, so as to breed them out in due time from the chrysalis. The solanum of the Rocky Mountains was thus the proper pabulum for the larva of the Colorado beetle, ere yet its dreaded name was known to history, or its misdeeds had become in two worlds the subject of repressive legislative enactments. In time, however, as civilization took its way westward, the potato spread in its wake to the base of the Rockies. The white man came and brought his tuber with him. Then the enterprising beetle saw his chance in life. Being a tolerable botanist, he perceived at a glance that the new plant introduced into his preserves by the American immigrant was indeed a solanum (though I don't for a moment suppose he called it to himself by that or any other name), and that it would probably prove, as the advertisements say, 66 an excellent substitute" for that other of its kind, his accustomed food-plant. He tried it forthwith, and it succeeded admirably. "The Potato for the Potato Beetle !" was thenceforth his cry. very few years the number of Colorado In a beetles on the face of the earth had increased a thousand-fold, and the intrusive host of loathsome, crawling larvæ-they are the ugliest and slimiest creatures ever seen outside a museum-had set Malthus at defiance, and spread over the length and breadth of America. To them it must have seemed as though the American people had planted whole square miles of a pecu liarly delicious and succulent solanum for no other purpose than to provide a pasture for innumerable hordes of Colorado beetles. Now the moral of all this, as the Duchess would have said to Alice in Wonderland, is immediately apparent to the reflective intelligence. Why did the Colorado beetle, who had never killed off his own solanum in endless centuries, succeed in overrunning such vast areas of good potato country in a few short seasons? Clearly because the potato itself was already too enfeebled by old age and disease to withstand the attacks of its insidious enemy. A vigorous young stock would have repelled the invaders, as Rome repelled the Gaul in the days of the Republic a decadent race could no more resist it than the provincials of the last age of the Empire could resist the onslaught of Alaric or Attila. The reason why the potato fell so fast before the mountainbred foe was the same as the reason why the Roman fell before the northern barbarian from his snow-clad fastnesses. The stock was worn out the race was exhausted whatever enemy chooses to attack it now, be it Goth or Hun, beetle or mildew, gains an easy and all too inglorious victory over the unhappy tuber. Nothing remains but the ghost of the once mighty plant, the Romani nominis umbra of defunct potatohood. And is the potato really doomed? And must the tuber die? Then thirty thousand Kerry boys will know the reason why. Has a cruel and oppressive Saxon government, intent merely on the woes of Kent and Leicestershire, done nothing to prevent this national disgrace, and to guarantee the foodstuff of the finest peasantry in Europe? Well, there is still hope, though a very faint one. Attempts are being made by skilled botanists to cross the po tato with various allied South American solanums, so as to bring back something of the primitive vigor to the exhausted stock, and to preserve its life to many future generations. If these experiments prove successful, the plant we shall obtain will be, not quite a potato, but a sturdy mulatto of sound and vigorous constitution. It is hoped that the new potato (not, of course, in the Covent Garden sense) will prove superior to the attacks of Peronospora infestans-the mildew of the famine and will laugh to scorn the puny attempts of that now dreaded visitor, the Colorado beetle, whose advent in Europe by Cunard steamer, on a continental tour, has been duly expected any time these last ten years. Finally, let me pour forth one word of comfort into the distressed ear of British housewifery. I fear my prognostication of evil to come may have sunk too deep into the tender heart of many an anxious wife and mother. She may have trembled too trustingly for dear baby's dinner. To calm these excessive fears for the future of cookery, I should like to explain that when I talk of the proximate extinction of the potato I use the words only in a Pickwickian sense, and by the usual measures of geological chronology. The probable date which I would fix upon for the fulfilment of my prophecy is approximately that of the Greek Kalends. The potato is undoubtedly in very feeble health; but its friends and its medical advisers hope that with care and attention its life may be spared for many years to come, if not even perhaps prolonged indefinitely. Threatened men live long. The potato may live longer than any of us reckon upon. It is true its constitution is seriously impaired, and its liability to disease grows every day more marked. But no effort is being spared by science to recruit its shattered health; and now that the true nature of its complaint-old age-is fully understood, measures are being taken before it dies to supply its place, if the worst should come, by an appropriate successor of the same family. This successor will doubtless share half its blood, and, if the attempts at hybridization turn out as well as we have reason to expect, will be stronger and healthier than its decrepit ancestor. In any case, we are fairly safe in our own time. Our beefsteak will not be divorced from its faithful helpmeet. And after us the deluge. Succeeding ages will learn to do without potatoes altogether, or will patronize the yam-trade with the flourishing republics of Central Africa. - Cornhill Magazine. GOETHE AND CARLYLE, A COMPARISON. BY M. B.-E. THE cynic of Chelsea one day met a friend accompanied by his youthful son. "How fortunate!" cried the friend. "This is the second distinguished contemporary I have had the opportunity of introducing to my son to-day." "And who was the first ?" sneered Timon of Cheyne Walk. His interlocutor then named an illustrious contemporary, a man who, whatever the estimate of Carlyle by posterity, is sure to be held in honor hereafter, alike by thinkers at home and abroad. "The unending ass !" was Carlyle's comment. 66 The story is of a piece with his life, character, and writings. What else, indeed, should we expect from the upholder of slavery, of military despotism, of tyranny in any form, and last, but not least, the detractor of every man and woman of note he condescended to criticise? Very different was Goethe's spirit. Goethe's maxim applied to his contemporaries was that of Coleridge applied to literary criticism. "Let any man point out the beauties of a poem to me, and I am grateful," he wrote; any one can find defects." Thus magnanimously Goethe viewed human nature. He always set himself to discover the endowments and good qualities of those he came in contact with; nothing in the way of mental or personal charm escaped his observation. Throughout life he was indeed as a lover of art strolling through a picture gallery, delighting to be able to praise and appreciate. Perhaps the habit of mind was partly inherited. His father, he tells us, never neglected the works of living artists; he used to tell his son that perhaps they might occupy the same position in time to come, that the great masters did in his own epoch. Goethe, too, we must remember, received the most wonderful education, perhaps, ever accorded a human being. By a happy combination of circumstances, every natural gift was developed, every faculty had full play. Alike to the poet, thinker, citizen, his surroundings were favorable in the highest degree, and, in certain respects, unique. He grew up amid the bustle of great events; he saw and knew many noteworthy personages, and breath ed the atmosphere of literature, art, and scientific inquiry. Lastly, he travelled, early storing his mind with experiences of men, manners, and scenes. Deeply interesting, however, as is his autobiography from this point of view, it is his genial portraiture of contemporaries that lends the work such significance and charm. As we read, we are forced, in spite of ourselves, into a comparison as unfavorable to Carlyle as it is deserved. Carlyle, in act, whatever his merits as a writer-and doubtless they have been much exaggerated-could not support the idea of superiority in any one. Carlyle was Carlyle's god. Men and women were, to use his own dictum, " for the most part fools"-“ unending asses. Goethe, on the contrary-and herein lies, perhaps, the secret of his greatness-was always on the look-out for his equals. He possessed, in a large degree, that good gift of reverence, as he truly says in "Wilhelm Meister" rarely instinctive in the young, and to be inculcated as a moral habit. Turn over these pages where we will, we find delightful portraits of men and women, for the most part unknown to fame, yet possessed of character, talents, and personal attractions highly appreciated by the poet. His many-sided nature nowhere comes out more strongly than in these sketches of friends, acquaintances, and fellow-citizens. Just as in daily life he was ready to profit by every experience, so in his dealings with his fellows he was ready to learn by all. We read that he even eagerly seized upon the opportunity of frequenting an oil-cloth manufactory, as a means of attaining technical instruction! And similarly human intercourse in any sphere opened his mind to new interests and fields of activity. It is hardly too much to say that he found something to admire every where. Even the exquisite handwriting of one of his friends called forth his warmest admiration and while it evidently delighted him to draw a noble portrait of some distinguished compeer-Herder, for instance -no intellectual or personal endowment of ordinary acquaintance was passed by. Little niceties in dress, an agreeable voice, a graceful manner, a dignified gait-all |