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TJie Country GentlemajUs Magazine 



you to form a Chamber for the Fylde district, 

 and should you decide upon forming one, I 

 shall be happy to join the Council, and act 

 as your representative at the Central Cham- 

 ber, or in any other way that I can be of use 

 to you. 



THE POTATO DISEASE : AGRICULTURAL 

 STRIKES. 



I will now allude to thepotato disease, which, 

 I regret to see, has re-appeared, not only in 

 this large potato-growing district, but more 

 or less throughout England, Ireland, and 

 Scotland. Some theorists attribute the 

 disease to electricity in the air during thunder- 

 storms, others to other causes. Some as a 

 preventive recommend growing broad or 

 other beans between the rows of potatoes, 

 others other remedies; but none, so far as I 

 can judge, have been proved to be preven- 

 tives; it must be remembered that science 

 is restricted to a single aim — that of finding 

 a theory for nature — it cannot find out 

 causes. Nature permits not man to extort 

 all her secrets, nor to lose his curiosity by 

 finding out all her perfection. I last year 

 gave my views of this disease to the Raw- 

 clifife tenantry. The cause I do not pretend 

 to account for ; but as a preventive I 

 advise greater care in the selection of seed, 

 in the mode of culture, and in not growing 

 this root too frequently in the same soil, but 

 in rotation with other crops. Land will 

 become potato sick as well as clover sick, 

 as it will of any other crop if grown too 

 frequently. Several years since I stated in 

 this room that one day the occupiers of the 

 moss lands in the Fylde district would have 

 cause to regret growing potatoes year after 

 year, and often without change of seed. We 

 all know that animals degenerate when bred 

 in and in, and so do seeds grown con- 

 tinuously in the same soil. I think it would 

 be wise to grow potatoes from seedlings, to 

 plant moderately early in rows wide apart, 

 and at least twelve inches from plant to 

 plant, that sun and air may reach the soil. 

 Also to select varieties which do not grow 

 haulm too luxuriantly, and to grow potatoes 

 in rotation with other crops, when I believe 



the virulence of the potato disease may be 

 avoided, but I do not think it will be 

 effectually guarded against by adopting any 

 known remedy in certain seasons. Another 

 disease has been very troublesome to agricul- 

 turists this year — I allude to the strike disease, 

 which is evidently contagious. The animals 

 originally inflicted with it were political 

 spouters, and these imparted the disease first 

 among artisans, and then among labourers, 

 both of the town and country. I, however, 

 have not heard that the disease has ap- 

 peared in this district, probably because 

 your labourers are as highly paid as any in 

 the kingdom. I regret that the farm labourers 

 of any district should become tools in the 

 hands of designing agitators. I am, and 

 always have been, an advocate for paying 

 fair wages for a fair day's work, and detest 

 oppression of every kind. If, therefore, 

 farm labourers in any particular district 

 have a grievance which requires to be re- 

 dressed, they have an undoubted right to 

 combine for the purpose of obtaining redress; 

 this, however, they will not obtain by asso- 

 ciating themselves with trades' unionists. 

 They should remember, or be told, that the 

 farmers of this country of open ports, have to 

 contend against the closed ports of the world 

 — that manufacturers and others can, and 

 do, meet increased wages by increasing the 

 selling price of the articles they make or pro- 

 duce, whether these consist of clothing, 

 carpets, coal, iron, beer, houses, &c,; but the 

 agriculturists cannot increase the price of 

 their produce for the reasons just stated. 

 They are, in addition, subjected to losses by 

 diseases in their cattle, sheep, and crops, as 

 well as from storms and floods, from 

 all which losses manufacturers are free, or 

 very nearly so. Farm labourers should think 

 thrice ere they break up their homes, and 

 sever those ties of friendship which have 

 bound them and their employers for ages, 

 but which ties have rarely existed between 

 town labourers and their employers. Beyond 

 all this, trades' and labourers' unions are only 

 suited to the idle and ill-disposed, and operate 

 as levelling systems of the worst descriptions. 

 Farm labourers who join labourers' unions 



