Historical Notes on the Potato Disease. 



"The most easy way to scourge the land, and force it to yield speedy returns, 

 was by growing crops of potatoes, which are largely productive, but at the same 

 time specially exhaustive of the mineral wealth of the soil. An average crop of 

 potatoes robs the soil of the seed, constituents of between three and four average 

 crops of wheat. The tenants were too poor, and if they had been rich had no 

 inducement, by the tenure of their laud, to restore to the soil, through adequate 

 manuring, the heavy demands which had been made on its fertility. At the 

 time of the famine in 1846, nearly one-fourth of the land under crops was devoted 

 to potatoes. And even now, out of every 100 acres devoted to green crops in 

 Ireland, 71 are still given to potatoes — a proportion nearly three times greater 

 than that in Scotland, and six times greater than that of England. * * » 



''The striking deterioration of the potato produce in Ireland deserves much 

 more attention than it has received, but can only be slightly alluded to in the 

 present essay. From 1601, when Raleigh introduced it into Ireland, the crop 

 grew steadily in favor with the Irish peasantry until 1815, in which year the 

 largest amount of acreage was devoted to it, and fine crops of six and seven tons 

 to the acre were habitually and persistently attained. The famine came, and, as 

 Irish agriculturists assert, the nature of the potato was altered by the disease of 

 1846, and its produetive power was lessened ; at least this is given as the 

 explanation of its present low position among Irish crops. It is no longer the 

 potato which is the farmer's chief source of profit in Ireland." (''Recess Studies,'' 

 edited by Sir Alexander Grant, pp. 250-251.) 



"If, then, the loss to Ireland is £3,500,000, we should be glad to know how 

 much the total loss will have been when the destruction in England, Wales and 

 Scotland is taken into account. To place the latter at £1,500,000 is no very ex- 

 travagant assumption ; and if so, this country has lost five millions of money by 

 the potato murrain." {Gardeners^ Chronicle, 1846, pp. 217.) 



*^ Copper Smoke a Preventive of Potato Disease. — In the district about Mealh 

 and Swansea ' wherever the copper smoke prevails,' was the expression of an 

 intelligent inhabitant with whom I fell into conversation, the potatoes are 

 sound, and the same person informed me it was also the case last year. I can 

 verify the fact so far as the present appearance of the crop, as seen from the 

 mail-coach roof can be considered a veritication ; but I state it with a view of in- 

 ducing more particular inquiry into it. You are, I dare say, aware the district I 

 speak of is crowded with copper smelting furnaces." — (^Gardeners' Chronicle, 1846, 

 p. 582.) 



