72 [Senate 



In common with several ' European countries, this State has been 

 visited with a disease, which has seriously affected both the yield and 

 quality of the poor man's esculent — the Potato. The average yield 

 of this valuable root ought to be nearly if not quite two hundred 

 bushels per acre, throughout the entire State, and yet from the census 

 returns it does not amount to more than ninety. This calamity early 

 arrested the attention of the State Society, and they are ready to be- 

 lieve that the communications which they are about to publish will 

 have a decided and beneficial effect upon the culture of this inestima- 

 ble root. Unless this is the fact, and the disease nevertheless goes on 

 increasing in intensity and malignity, the most serious consequences 

 will ultimately be realized. Already a less quantity of land is plant- 

 ed with potatoes by the farmer. Thus the amount of the crop is di- 

 minished, and if it is still further diminished by disease, the poor will 

 severely suffer. 



It is a singular fact that the restrictive policy which has closed the 

 ports of England against the world, was commenced in the reign of 

 Elizabeth — during whose reign the potato was first introduced into 

 Europe — and that owing to the lamentable failure of this national root 

 crop, this restrictive policy is about to be abandoned. Strange that 

 so humble an agricultural production should have such momentous 

 influence upon the destinies of great nations.- 



In connection with this subject, your committee would remark, that 

 the American farmer must have his attention drawn to the use of salt 

 as manure in an especial manner. Salt has not been used for this 

 purpose to any very great extent, as your committee learn. Yet it 

 has been satisfactorily proven by numerous experiments in the county 

 of Onondaga and elsewhere, that the free use of salt has very much 

 added to the yield of the land. 



This is an important fact ; yet there is something connected with 

 the use of salt as manure of almost equal importance ; that is the un- 

 paralleled agency of salt in destroying insects of almost every kind. 

 No farmer should neglect to use salt as a manure upon all those fields 

 liable to pestiferous ravages of the grub, wire worm and caterpillar. 

 In gardens it.is invaluable, especially in those which have long been 

 worked and are very rich. The disease of the potato, before men- 

 tioned, whatever may be its cause, is found to yield its virulence to 

 the agency of salt, and no potato crop should be planted without salt 

 being used, in whole or in part, -as a manure. 



