122 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



gestion that down in Maine we use lime with good effect as 

 a remedy for scabbiness. We do not cultivate sufficiently 

 or manure sufficiently, oftentimes, to cause scabbiness, but 

 when we undertake to raise potatoes in our gardens, which 

 are thoroughly manured and dressed, it is frequently the case 

 that they become scabby : and from personal observation in 

 my own garden, I have found the best remedy is to put a 

 little unslacked lime into the hill when they are planted, and 

 its effect is good. It does not hurt the seed. If it slacks 

 there, it warms up the potato, and causes it to sprout quicker. 

 I suppose this destroys the insects in the hill. I do not know 

 that the angle-worm has anything to do with occasioning this 

 scabbiness. If a potato is scabb}^ the angle-worm might find 

 its refuge in that scabby locality, but I think it is smaller 

 insects, not worms, which occasion the scabbiness. 



Mr. Brown. I do not know that I can offer anvthinof that 

 will enlighten or instruct any one here. I have tried my hand 

 at growing potatoes ; I have raised all the kinds I could find, 

 have paid big prices, and was willing to do it ; have tried all 

 modes of cultivation I could hear of; and I must say, that I 

 have made very little progress in the matter. I can throw 

 but very little light upon the subject. 



In regard to this matter of scabbiness, I am pretty much 

 convinced that it is caused by an insect, but I cannot point it 

 out. The worst case I ever saw was this year, iu some pota- 

 toes grown on the spot where an old building stood in front 

 of my barns, which was torn down more than thirty years 

 since. There was not a decent-looking potato in the lot. 

 They were the most perfect specimens of scabby potatoes I 

 ever saw. There was very little manure used, and the pota- 

 toes were small also. I could not lay it to the angle- worm 

 at all. Angle-worms may bite the potato a little; but it is 

 not a very tempting morsel to any sort of worm, I take it. 

 I doubt if angle-worms could produce the scabby potatoes. 

 I have been troubled with them only where the land is culti- 

 vated a great many years. In my field-land I have never 

 seen any scabby potatoes. 



Near my buildings, I ploughed a piece, and planted it with 

 potatoes, — it was near where an old house stood, — and I got 

 twenty or thirty bushel.,s, and there was not a respectable- 



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