34^ AGRICULTURE OP MAINE. 



SOME DISEASES OF THE POTATO. 

 (An Illustrated Lecture). 



W. J. Morse. 



Very few of our agricultural crops of temperate regions are 

 subject to so many and so varied diseases as the potato. There are 

 several different factors which are responsible for this. In the first 

 place it is now grown under conditions much more varied and 

 often much more unfavorable than those of its natural habitat. 

 The plant has been greatly modified and changed under cultiva- 

 tion, particularly with reference to its tuber producing capacity 

 and the time required in which to do this. It would not be 

 strange if this was brought about at the expense of certain other 

 characters, such as disease resistance, etc. Moreover, man has 

 carried the potato to the ends of the earth and back again, and 

 on its way it has picked up a varied assortment of parasites of 

 different degrees of importance and the distribution of these 

 parasites has been greatly facilitated by the fact that the edible 

 portion of the plant is succulent, is produced in the ground, and 

 is used for reproductive purposes. 



It is not my intention nor desire to spend time threshing over 

 old straw, but in the potato industry, as in anything else, the 

 significance of certain well known facts is often overlooked. 

 Moreover, from events which have taken place during the past 

 few years, it is evident that certain facts in connection with the 

 potato industry in Maine cannot be pointed out to us too fre- 

 quently or too emphatically if the industry is to be permanent 

 and continue to grow and develop in the manner in which we 

 have every reason to believe it is capable of doing. 



Maine today produces one-third as many potatoes as were 

 grown in the entire United States at the close of the Civil War, 

 and the total yield of our potato fields hae trebled during the last 



