220 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



very favorable early conditions for producing the blight. The 

 rains of June and July were unusually large, and the blight 

 started in the fields a little earlier than it did last season, but 

 this rainy period was followed by a dry period, so that we 

 had very little injury to the foliage, and none whatever to 

 the tubers. We did have an injury, however, which is due to 

 very dry weather, in some cases. I refer to the pit burn. Out 

 in the central west they suffer more from this than anything 

 else, but it is due to very hot weather being followed by rainy 

 weather. It is due to a loss of moisture. The' leaves dry up 

 from the trouble. I speak of this because a good many per- 

 sons are apt to confuse it with the blight. 



Now as to our spraying experiments we have carried them 

 up to the point where we are able to say that by thoroughly 

 spraying by hand we can increase the yield over unsprayed 

 fields, and it is very effective in keeping off early blight, and 

 keeping down the ravages of insects. 



Now the second line of work that I am looking into is a 

 study of the disease-resisting power of different varieties of 

 potatoes. I have been studying these different varieties to see 

 if certain varieties are more or less subject to disease. The 

 government is doing a good deal of work along this line, but 

 while I have done some work in that direction I have not been 

 studying the potato especially except as to the blight. The 

 other work is not so far advanced. Now there are certain 

 of the fungus diseases which seem to attach themselves more 

 often to the plants of certain varieties. In other words, there 

 are varieties that are more resistant to disease than others. In 

 the case of blight, in my own personal experience, I have not 

 seen a resistant variety. I have not seen resistant individual 

 plants such as we sometimes find for some other fungus 

 troubles. The government has carried on some very interest- 

 ing work along this line. Of course, that work has not been 

 limited to the potato. The government got a strain that was 

 resistant to certain cotton diseases. By going out into the field 

 and finding certain individual plants that seemed to be resistant, 

 and by breeding from those plants they built up a strain which 

 seemed to be resistant to disease. Now they are trying some- 

 thing of that same kind with the potato, but where the potato 



