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their hands in their pockets, furnish them with the means of buying 

 bread instead. Let the leading papers give their thousand pounds 

 each, let Dr. Buckland give his thousand pounds, and all the minor 

 actors, on the potato-stage, suras in proportion to their essays and 

 orations: this is the way to meet the evil and to rejoice the hearts of 

 the sufferers. 



These observations may perhaps be allowed to serve as an introduc- 

 tion to the following sensible paragraphs which appear as the leading 

 article in last week's 'Gardener's Chronicle' a paper which has however 

 devoted far too much space to the 'notoriety seeking' scribes on this 

 hackneyed subject to be excused from a liberal contribution to the 

 general fund. 



" Last year, wherever the tops of the Potatoes were blighted, the 

 tubers were also, invariably, decayed. We are not aware of any example 

 to the contrary. This year it is not so. We have ourselves seen Potato 

 fields with all the tops blighted, and yet the crop, a very scanty one, 

 was either free from disease, or inconsiderably affected. Our Paris 

 correspondent, of last week, spoke to the same fact. Near Hythe, 

 in Kent, the crop is better than last year, both in quantity and quality, 

 although the plants were blighted ; and we know that the circum- 

 stance is by no means uncommon. In other cases a second crop of 

 small tubers is forming; so that great as the mischief no doubt is, yet 

 it is much less than last year in some places. What does this mean ? 

 Of course such a fact may be taken to signify that the atmosphere 

 was the vehicle by which disease was communicated to the tuber; 

 and that in these instances the atmospheric influence, whatever it may 

 be, which has swept over the face of the country, was resisted by the 

 vigour of the Potato crop. 



"Some weeks ago acorrespondent mentioned a report that the Potato 

 crops, within the influence of the smoke from the copper works round 

 Swansea, were saved from the blight, although the crops perished be- 

 yond the circle of their influence. It was also asserted in the Cam- 

 brian newspaper, that: — 



"' Last year the Potatoes reared in the neighbourhood of the copper 

 works turned out to be healthy, and that in the present season the 

 fact is still more determined. While in Sketty, Langyfelach, and all 

 around, the Potatoes are universally diseased, it so happens that in 

 the immediate vicinity of the smoke they are sound and healthy, with 

 scarcely a trace of disease to be found in them.' 



" This has been contradicted. But we are now in a condition to 

 show that the statement alluded to was true. The following letter 



