San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-09-21
The Oceans Entertainments,

New Jersey property owners are consider
ably alarmed by the encroachments of tn
Atlantic ocean upon valuable seaside land. |
is well known fact that the New JerSe,
coast is gradually sinking, but the sea itsel
is also destructive. That the heavy north
easterly storms of each passing winter" say
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 'are destroying
the beaches along the whole coast line from
Sandy Hook to Cape May is exemplifed by
what has been seen by the naked eye during
the last fifty years. In 1904, when Cape May
was prominently known as a wat sring place
the beach extended 200 feet further into the
ocean than 1t does today"
The PriDieval Potato.
In some unknown region of the New World
probably somewhere about the highlands OF
Peru-for the origin of the potato like that
of Mr.. JeameS de La Pluche and other i'm
pOrtant personages, is ''wrop in mystery
there grew, at that precise period of history
known to ChronOlogers as ''once upon a time, y
a solanaceOus plant peculiarly prosecuted in
the struggle for life by the persistent atten,
tiOns of too many hungry and herbivorous
admirers. In such a case the common re,
source of any ordinary INSCRIPTIONS mem
Der of the sOlanum family would doubtless
have been to adopt the usual sOlanaceou'
tactics of poisoning these its ObtTusive friends
and actual enemies Any other soanum
would have filled its stem and leaves witt
narcotic juices, and made itself exceedingly
bitter to the taste, so that the beasts ant
birds, disguised at the first bite, would hav,
desisted from the vain attempt to devOur il
Not so the father of all potatoes That hon
est and straightforward plant declined t.
have recourse to such mean strategy Hare
pressed by herbivores in the struggle for ex
istence, it struck out new line for itself anC
for Ireland 1t invented the tuber
and what is the tuber, which natural Sc
lection, thus acting upon the necessities of the
primeval potato, succeeded in producing fol-
hungry world! Essentially and fundamen
=, tally it is not, as most people imagine, a root
but an underground branch, bearing buds anC
! undeveloped leaves on its surface, which We
know as eyes, and capable Of doing all the
, work of branch in producing foliage, flow
ers and berries. All that is peculiar to the
tuber, viewed as a branch, sums itself up il
two cardinal points. First, it happens to de
| yelOp under ground ian accident which,
we all know i'll the familiar cases of layer
and suckers, may occur with any ordinary
branch any day, and, secondly, it is large
| swollen and soft, because it contains large re
| serves of material, laid up by the plant in thi
safe retreat to aid the future growth of it
stems, and leaves in a second season.
| A tuber, in fact, must be regarded merel,
as one of the many plans adopted by plant
in order to secure for themselves continuity
of existence. In woody shrubs and trees the
: material laid up by the individual to provide
for next years leaves and flowers is stored
in the inner bark, which does not die, and
this accounts for the way in which such trees
as almonds, mezeron and pyrus japonica are
enabled to blossom in early spring before the
foliage itself begins to come out-Cornhil
! Magazine