28 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



an extent that people quit that crop and are buying their potatoes. In 

 the west there are wonderul valleys that are great producers for a time, 

 and then this disease gets hold of them and they quit, and a new country 

 furnishes a supply. 



Mr. Gibson : How do you account for their growing potatoes so long 

 in Ireland. 



Mr. Morrill : The Irish are pretty bright people and they probably 

 succeed where others don't. I wish someone would tell me if they have 

 succeeded for a term of years where blight was prevalent. I have seen 

 some farms under some conditions have a nice crop of potatoes on land 

 not so good as that on which I lost mine by blight. 



Mr. Munson : I heard a man saying something about getting four 

 hundred bushels per acre and sprayed often. 



Mr. Morrill : I have worked a long time on potatoes, and I would 

 go a long way to find out about this thing. 



Mr. Smeltzer of Benzie County: Speaking about potato blight, I 

 have not sprayed except for the beetle myself, but some of my neighbors 

 are quite heavy potato growers, and some of the men since they have 

 begun to spray for potato blight have had good crops. 



A member: (Mr. Morrill) It is the early blight we have. Part of 

 my patch was all right, some of them were still green and some of them 

 were bad. I would like to know how to control this early blight. 



Mr. White: There are perhaps three different kinds of blight we 

 have on potatoes. The early blight that Mr. Morrill has just been speak- 

 ing about is very hard to control. The early blight is usually the most 

 prevalent on early potatoes. There are many experiments in this 

 state and in the experiment stations that will give men considerable con- 

 trol on late blight that kills the vines off in a half week or such 

 matter. It has a very offensive odor. 



Mr. Morrill : The blight I mean is when the leaves begin to turn yel- 

 low. When you get the other you can control it. 



Mr. Wilson : I have raised potatoes. And often times we would 

 get from a peck to a half bushel in a hill. When the Colorado potato 

 bugs were first talked about we had a man in our town who ])rophesied 

 very solemnly that it was impossible for potato bugs to come in that 

 country on account of Lake Michigan being between. But after a 

 while I went down to the beach and saw a swarm of bugs that had 

 drifted ashore in a swarm — the water was full of them. Where they 

 came from I could never tell, but they were along the shore for two or 

 three miles along Crystal Lake about four to six inches thick, and as 

 soon as they dried they were ready for work, and we have been infested 

 with them ever since. Now as far as using Bordeaux mixture for 

 blight and bugs is concerned, I have sprayed for something over twenty- 

 five years, from the first time I heard al)out it being necessary — sprayed 

 my fniit trees and my potatoes for bugs — and these bugs succumb to 

 paris green in reasonable good shape, and while some of my neighbors 

 had blight I never had any. I keep up this spraying three or four times 

 during the season, and they are always in good condition without any 

 trouble. 



A Member: I have been waiting for a point to be brought out. I 

 understand this spray goes through a chemical change in about ten days 

 (the Bordeaux), and is only active about ten days. I have found that 

 when they sprayed, if they sprayed more often, the cost was more than 



