THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 245 



regards the potato crop, was splendid ; but a flash of lightning 

 struck the flag. In other words, a strange blight appeared. It was 

 not general, and it did not seriously injure the crop ; but it was 

 carious. Here and there in the field a plant or a group of plants 

 appeared as if smitten with some killing malady. The whole of the 

 growth above ground was shrunk, and the usual symptoms of potato 

 disease were not apparent. The microscopists were very busy. They 

 found traces of peronospora, protomyces, ascomyces, sepedoniei, and 

 other fungi ; but as they could not explain that the fungi caused 

 the shrinking, they got out of the difiiculty by designating the 

 shrinking (with happy vagueness) a New Disease. 



At this juncture, having examples of the shrinking in our plan- 

 tations at Stoke Newington, we began to look into the matter, and, 

 on lifting a few plants, the case was completely and lucidly ex- 

 plained. The roots were crowded with wireworms and other insect 

 plagues ; the underground stems were pierced, channelled, and 

 barked by the same pests. On making careful microscopic examina- 

 tion of the withered leaves, we found there were just such traces of 

 fungi as are common to withered leaves in a general way, for when 

 leaves die, fungi take possession of them, and make a banquet of 

 decay. We were confirmed in our opinion that wireworm was the 

 cause of the so-called " new disease " when we made a careful 

 examination of the plantations of our friend Mr. Peter McKiiilay of 

 Beckenham. It is true he had but little of the plague to experiment 

 upon ; but that little was enough. On lifting the blighted plants, 

 we found wireworm boring the tubers, peeling the stems, and 

 piercing, as with gimlets, the most vulnerable part of the plant, that is 

 at the " collar,'' or where the ground line crosses, a point which 

 gardeners describe, happily, perhaps, as "between wind and water." 

 In a letter to the Times, published July 1, we stated the case as 

 clearly as was in our power, saying that, up to that date, there was 

 no new disease, and, in fact, no disease at all; but that wireworm, 

 co-operating with most unseasonable heat and drought, afi"orded all 

 the explanation needed as to the occasional collapse of the potato 

 plant iu the sunny month of May. 



The representatives of the Royal Horticultural Society ought, 

 we admit, to have made the discovery. They are commissioned, not 

 only by the Society's supporters, but by the public generally, to take 

 the lead in such matters. As they did not, but, on the other hand, 

 went on pottering with microscopists, they allowed to drift into the 

 hands of a heterodox outsider a discovery that should have been their 

 own. Strange to say, wireworm does not exist in the Society's 

 gardens at Chiswick. Not one of the ofiicial reports makes mention 

 of such a thing. The great authority up there. Dr. Hogg, who is 

 now very deservedly exalted to the post of Honorary Secretary, has 

 never yet mentioned wireworm, and it may be that, in common with 

 Mr. Berkeley, who also has past the meridian of life, his sight is 

 less keen, and liis capability of conviction not so delicate as in days 

 gone by. However, a few folks not blessed with official appoint- 

 ments under the segis of the Royal Hoiticultural Society, have 

 arrived at the couclusion that the shrivelling that followed the 



August. 



