348 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTDRAL SOCIETY. 



2. Store the harvested crop ill dry cellars, and sort over several 

 times, at short intervals, carefully removing from the bins every tuber 

 which shows the least ?ign of decay. Remove, also, to a separate pile, 

 those tubers which have been lying in contact with the diseased ones. 

 The sorting will be facilitated and the decay hindered by storing the 

 tubers in casks, barrels or small boxes. Potatoes buried in quantity 

 in fields will be likely to rot in toto during the coming winter if, by 

 chance, any infected tubers were buried with the sound ones. 



3. Plant next season only tubers which are entirely sound, out- 

 side and inside. The black spots contain the fungus. Some tubers 

 may appear sound on the surface and be diseased within. Determine 

 the soundness of the tubers by cutting at planting time. To plant 

 diseased potatoes will insure a continuation of the rot. 



4. Even if direction No. 1 has been followed, more or less of the 

 potato fungus will probably remain over winter in the fields ready to 

 grow if there is an opporl unity. Do not, therefore, plant in the same 

 fields as last year, nor in adjoining odes, nor near fields planted by 

 neighbors if some more remote locality can be found. 



5. Take advantage of the prevailing direction of the wind. Our 

 summer and autumn winds are chiefly from points between south and 

 west. There is, therefore, a chance of escaping wind blown spores by 

 planting to the southwest of other potato fields, or to the northeast of 

 woodlan,ds or other large uncultivated tracts. 



6. The growth of the parasite is favored by moisture and stopped 

 by drouth. It is rapid in rainy weather and when there are heavy 

 dews. Usually the rot is much worse upon clay land or other soils 

 which retain moisture. Choose, therefore, a light and dry soil for 

 planting. 



It has been shown experimentally that, with only moderate water- 

 ing, the summer spores will penetrate the soil to a depth of several 

 inches, consequently " hilling up "' will not protect. The probabilities 

 are, also, that no substances can be dusted upon or otherwise applied to 

 the growing plants with much benefit. If some varieties of the po- 

 tato are less subject to the rot than others, a thing not improbable, the 

 present state of our knowledge does not enable us to say positively 

 which they are. 



ft 



HISTORY OP THE POTATO. 



The early history of the potato is involved in obsurity. It has been 

 supposed that the plant was first found by Europeans in Virginia, and 

 that Sir Walter Raleigh carried it thence to England in the year 1586. 

 Raleigh never visited Virginia. He only furnished ships and means 



