JEAN DARLING, eight-year-old movie star in "Our Gang" comedies, is having great fun during her stay in Detroit.
For one thing, she is on a vacation. For another, she has acquired a new diversion.
It's like this. Jean is a great friend of Mrs. Ethel H. Hogle, who is in charge of the circulating library at the Detroit-Leland hotel, where Jean and her mother are guests. One day she noticed a queer looking "plant" on Mrs. Hogle's desk. Being of the alert, inquiring type, she found out that it was a sweet potato in a glass pitcher and that it was sprouting shoots which were rapidly growing into vines.
Jean further learned that practically every permanent guest in the house was growing at least one sweet potato and that each day there was a measuring bee, to find out whose potato had the best record of growth.
Suddenly, little Miss Jean found that she had acquired a new profession - as measurer-in-chief of sweet potato vines. And she's getting a big thrill out of it.
"Why, it's almost like Jack and the Bean Stalk!" she exclaimed. "Our vine grew four inches between Saturday night and Monday morning."
"Planting" sweet potatoes in vases, bottles or cans is an old trick to farmers, but may not be so well known to city folk. Fill the glass with water and insert one end of the potato. Put in in a dark room for three days, then bring it out into the sunlight - and you'll be fascinated watching the daily progress of your sweet potato plant. Do not change the water, but keep the glass full.
The fine, gleaming white roots that grow down into the vases are as interesting as the vine. Start one yourself!