IRISH GARDENING 



VOLUME XII 

 No. ir.^ 



Editor-J. W. Besant. 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO THE 



ADVANCEMENT OF HORTICULTURE AND 



ARBORICULTURE IN IRELAND 



MAY 

 1917 



Spraying Potatoes* 



done, but 

 to ensure 



Y this time the bulk of Potatoes, 

 early and late, will be planted, and 

 some amount of speculation will be 

 rife as to the subsequent crop. 

 Much, of course, will depend on 

 hoAV the preparator^y work was 

 a great deal more can be done 

 a satisfactorj' return for the 



labour and money expended in preparing the 



ground and pur- 

 chasing seed. A 



walk r o u n d 



several large 



allotment areas 



to the north of 



Dublin, on 



Easter Monday, 



disclosed a busy 



scene. Hundreds 



of men and 



youths, and 



some ladies, 



were busy dig- 

 ging or marking 



out " ridges " 



and planting 



Potatoes de- 

 spite the almost 



arctic weather 



conditions. By 



far the largest 



area under cultivation 



toes, and it occurred 



Achillea ageratifolia. 



is devoted to Pota- 

 to the writer that if 

 the ensuing season should prove a bad one for 

 disease, or as it is more commonly called 

 '• blight," there will be widespread and poignant 

 disappointment, and probably in some cases 

 discouragement from further effort. 



Now, practical and scientific men have been 

 working for years in trying to produce disease- 

 resisting varieties and also in devising means for 

 combating the fell ravages of " blight." Of 

 disease -resisting varieties we need say Iittle,seeing 



the choice this season has been limited and 

 people had to take what they could get. 



It is a well established fact, however, that 

 spraying is undoubtedly of the greatest value 

 in reducing disease to a minimum, otherwise 

 large market growers, who have to depend for a 

 living on the crops they produce, would waste 

 neither time nor money on it. There are, of 

 course, those who aver that spraying is not 



M- o r t h the 

 trouble, but the 

 number of far- 

 mers and gar- 

 deners holding 

 this view is 

 diminishing 

 a n n u a 1 1 y. A 

 great deal of 

 money has been 

 expended by the 

 State and other 

 bodies in experi- 

 menting with a 

 view to determin- 

 ing the value or 

 otherwise of spray- 

 ing, and the re- 

 sults generally are 

 markedly in fa- 

 vour of this item 

 in cultivation. 

 In these pages we have tried]to urge the folly of 

 close planting, but fear from our own observations 

 that many are stili imbued with the idea of getting 

 in as much "seed" as possible in the smallest 

 area. Six inches between the '• sets " would not 

 be less than Ave have seen some planted, and 

 what this means when a tangled mass of shoots 

 grow into each other can only be imagined by 

 experienced cultivators. In such cases disease 

 will run riot unless efficient means be taken to 

 prevent it. Under the circumstances there is 

 only one hope, and that is, spraying. 



