and on its Introduction into Europe. 155 



tended for summer use, and those planted about the latter end of 

 May. Our first produce this year was most excellent ; but the 

 latter crop, as I have stated above, is of very inferior quality, oc- 

 casioned it is said by superabundant wetness when the tubers 

 had received their full growth. — In the list of your printed queries 

 it is asked, '^ Do plants die out V " Is the potato dying out V 

 I would answer that I know of no instance of plants dying out, 

 nor do I believe that the potato is dying out; and should your next 

 summer be exempted from superabundant rains and be favoured 

 with more genial heat than the last, all your investigations, che- 

 mical, botanical and entomological, would be found to be super- 

 fluous. 



You may even spare yourselves the trouble of sending to 

 America for seed, your own being infinitely better than any 

 which we could furnish you with. It takes many years for po- 

 tatos to become acclimated. Should you plant exotic tubers, it 

 is probable that you would have no reason to be satisfied with the 

 result. In Pennsylvania the most esteemed kind is known under 

 the name of Mercer ; some of these were planted at my instance 

 by Charles Waterton, Esq., at Walton Hall, Yorkshire, a few years 

 ago, but the produce was not considered equal to that of the En- 

 glish varieties. I once made the experiment of planting for three 

 successive years, the Irish variety called Rose Potato; every care 

 was taken to promote success, a suitable soil and exposure were 

 selected, and the ordinary tillage was attended to with exactness. 

 The first year the produce was inferior to the seed as respected 

 quality, the next year an evident deterioration had taken place 

 both as to quality and quantity, and the third year the product 

 was of so little value that it was cast to the hogs ; during all the 

 three seasons mentioned my Mercer potato exhibited no change. 



The present year here is remarkable for another accident in 

 the vegetable kingdom. The European walnut [Juglans regia) 

 presented a great display of fruit in the month of June, but a 

 coleopterous insect had deposited its eggs in the green nuts in 

 such quantities, that at the usual period of maturity the kernels 

 were found to be entirely destroyed. I have in my garden two 

 trees which bore bushels of fruit, none of which escaped the ra- 

 vages of the larva3 of the insects. 



I am inclined to believe that your agriculturists by their recent 

 publications have created an unnecessary panic on the occasion 

 of the potato rot : we make no stir here when any of our crops 

 fail j people discourse of the event it is true, but we appoint no 

 committee of scientific men to investigate the cause of the fail- 

 ure ; the greater the evil, the more earnestly do we set about to 

 palliate it. 



I learn from the public prints that the diseased roots have 



