402 THE CEREAL AND OTHER CROPS OF SCOTLAND FOR 1990. 



Perthshire, Over large breadths of Scotland, however, the fine 

 warm season resulted in a yield and quality of grain singularly 

 fine, particularly where the autumnal rains did not occur. 



Oats generally were above the average, exceptions occurring, 

 however, in the counties of Dumbarton, Eoss, and Shetland, 

 where the season proved too dry for a satisfactory yield from this 

 cereal. In Ayrshire and the lower parts of Banffshire the crop 

 was an exceptionally good one. 



Turnips were generally a very good crop, in some cases 

 exceptionally so ; but in some districts, such as Easter Eoss, 

 the drought resulted in a crop a third under the average, and in 

 other districts the early frosts of the latter half of October 

 seriously injured the crop. 



Potatoes were above an average crop everywhere, except in 

 Skye, where the crop was a fourth under the average. The 

 severe frost about the 20th October did no little damaoje to the 

 crop in the drills and in pits in the counties of Eoxburgh, Ayr, 

 Lanark, Perth, Kincardine, and Aberdeen, or in those districts 

 where the frost was locally most severe. The returns regarding 

 the appearance and prevalence of disease are of the greatest im- 

 portance as marking the beginning of a practical inquiry into 

 the spread of the potato disease. It is as yet premature to draw 

 any conclusions from the data ; but it is interesting to note that 

 but little disease, and in many cases no disease at all, appeared 

 on the lands sloping down to the Moray Firth, and along the 

 Caledonian Canal ; and that the disease was worst to the south 

 of the Firth of Forth ;• in other words, precisely over that wide 

 district where the skies had been less clear and the temperature 

 less genial than elsewhere, and most particularly where the late 

 autumnal rains set in with more than their usual amount and fre- 

 quency. The returns referring to the different degrees in which 

 the different varieties of the potato resist or succumb to the 

 inroads of the disease is another branch of the inquiry which 

 will, it may be safely predicted, lead, in a year or two, to results 

 of the highest importance to the farmer. 



