356 N. H. STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



from two or three to a dozen hills here and there. I point- 

 ed it out to one or two of my neighbors and requested 

 them to note some of the places and observe how those 

 patches turned out when they dug them in the Autumn, tel- 

 ling them however what I thought the result would be. — 

 They reported to me after harvest that my prediction was 

 riglit — that the potatoes in these patches were so few and 

 BO small and poor as not to be worth the trouble and ex- 

 pense of harvesting. I afterwards heard other persons, to 

 whom I had made no previous mention of the subject, state 

 in conversing on the crop, as a matter that rather puzzled 

 them, that, iu digging their potatoes, while the yield was 

 was generally good, there were occasionally patches where 

 half a dozen hills would not give a mess for dinner, and 

 those small and of poor quality. In reply to my inquiry 

 as to the state of the leaves, one or two had noticed the 

 unusually contracted state of them, but had supposed it a 

 mere casualty occasioned by the attack of some insect, and 

 had not connected it with the deficiency of the tubers, nev- 

 er having heard of any such disease. 



As a destructive agent the curl is equally as bad as the 

 rot, and in this year's experience I suffered lully as much 

 by it. It is not, however, I believe, so persistent an enemy, 

 but comes and goes as seasons vary. 



Much has been said with regard to the rot, about using 

 fresh manure, planting for successive seasons on the same 

 ground, })lanting from the same stock of potatoes continuous- 

 ly, <fcc., as being efficient causes in producing this disease. 

 Now it so happens that I have planted the same ground 

 with potatoes for thirty years in succession, that I have al- 

 ways manured it with fresh barn-yard manure, plowed it in 

 immediately before planting; tliat for seed, at least sixteen 

 years, I have planted generation after generation of pota- 

 toes from tlie same original seed, on a part of tliat land; 

 yet I have always had a fine crop and .sometimes a large 

 one; I have suffered very little by the rot, and the potatoes 



