188 BOARD OF AGRICULTTTRE. [Jan., 



this board a number of years ago. A number of letters were 

 sent to me on the subject. The question was entirely too 

 much for me, so I turned over tbe correspondence to a 

 bigger and a better man, that is, to Dr. Farlow, and Dr. Far- 

 low took < the thing up and investigated it. The statements 

 made to me before that investigation by Dr. Farlow began, 

 and incidental to it, were, that if the cultivation of onions was 

 abandoned upon soil where the smut had appeared for five 

 years, the infection would remain in the soil for that length 

 of time, and if onions were again put upon it, they would be 

 somewhat infected ; but, as one man told me, seven years 

 would kill it. All I know about it is this statement that 

 was made to me by an onion cultivator, I believe down at 

 Westport. Somebody told me that he had known one field 

 where they had ceased to cultivate onions for live years, and 

 when they put them on again, the onions rusted ; in another 

 case, where they had ceased growing onions for seven years, 

 there was no smut when they planted them again. I do not 

 know anything more than these reports which were sent in. 



Mr. "Wakeman. I have yet to find a person Avho* will say 

 that by cultivating a field where the smut has made its ap- 

 pearance seven years, or even ten years, he has killed the 

 smut. 



Mr. Robinson. I hold in my hand a potato that has been 

 what we farmers call " worm-eaten." I would like to have 

 the speaker tell whether these spots are the effect of worms 

 or of some disease. 



Mr. Halsted. I shall take it home and look at it care- 

 fully with a compound microscope before I pass judgment 

 upon it. I have seen potatoes, many of them, that just as 

 soon as I picked them up and looked at them for half a min- 

 ute, I could say they were affected with the genuine wet rot 

 — peronosjjera infestans ; but this is not one of that kind. 

 This may not be affected at all by disease. I should think it 

 had been troubled with worms of some kind, or perhaps hit 

 by a hoe, or fork, or spade. Beyond that, I should not be 

 able to say there was anything bad about it. The ,way I 

 should have to do would be to cut off a slice of the potato 



