The Potatoe Plague. 53 



diluted honey, transparent, and tasting like the syrup of re- 

 fined sugar. It thickens as the sun rises, and ceases to be 

 fluid by ten or eleven o'clock. 



I leave it to the reader's ingenuity to discover how the 

 honey dew of Carolina can afflict the poor potatoes of Yan- 

 keedom, where it has not been seen for a hundred years, if 

 ever, and how a disease that originated thirty years ago, in 

 Europe, certainly, and probably in Ireland, should at last 

 have found its primal cause among the alligators of North 

 America. This theory seems to me too absurd to demand 

 serious refutation. 



Having now stated what I believe but partially and what I 

 do not believe at all, the reader is, perhaps, desirous to know 

 what I do believe. I say, I have no theory but nature's, but 

 that which is consistent with experience and common sense, 

 but that will account for the potatoe plague, in all its phases, 

 whenever and wherever it may appear ; and which, while it 

 detects the cause of the disease, also prescribes the remedy. 



But, firstly, 



There are some things certain, for which I ask no man to 

 take my word, and which it may be of advantage to all to 

 learn, viz : 



1. The disease is not confined to any particular kind of 

 soil or to any locality. Some assert that it pertains exclu- 

 sively to dry soil; others as stoutly maintain that it belongs 

 only to wet. 



2. It does not exclusively affect any particular kind or 

 kinds of potatoes. 



3. The affected potatoes, like other diseased vegetables, 

 are unwholesome, if not poisonous. 



4. Decomposition proceeds more rapidly among the infect- 

 ed potatoes, when placed in a heap ; whence I do not infer, 

 as many others do, that it is best to defer digging till late in 

 the .Fall. 



5* 



