54 The Potatoe Plague. 



It is an undenied, uncontroverted, uncontrovertible and 

 undeniable fact that, in both the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms, between which there is a close analogy, every stock 

 propagated for a long course of years within itself, exhausts 

 Tits vital energies and deteriorates. This has been known to 

 : all nations, in all ages ; this is the reason of the wise prohi- 

 bition of the intermarriages between near relatives ; this is 

 the cause of the deterioration of most of the reigning families 

 in Europe ; and hence it is that there are no more heroes 

 among the Bourbons, or wise men among the Guelphs. The 

 intermarrying cretins and cagots have transmitted their taint- 

 ed blood to a race of dwarfs and idiots, and but why need 

 I multiply instances ? every practical farmer and sports- 

 man knows the inevitable consequence of "breeding in and 

 in," and breeding from defective specimens. And this dete- 

 rioration is as true and certain in the vegetable kingdom. 

 The scrub oaks, and dry, short grass of the western prairies 

 attest it. That the potatoe is not exempt from this inherent 

 tendency to deterioration, I shall cite two, among a thousand 

 evidences. 



For thirty years, or more, this disease has been making 

 slow and insidious progress in Europe ; but it is not until 

 quite lately that it has excited any alarm on this continent. 

 What does this show, if not, that the old stocks of Europe, 

 having had time to exhaust their vital energies, have at last 

 fallen into inevitable decay, which is but beginning among 

 the younger stocks of America ? The once famous apple 

 potatoe of Ireland, for a long series of years the pride and 

 ; boast of the island, at last showed such signs of decay that the 

 cultivation of it was entirely abandoned. This happened 

 some years ago, and the rest of the Irish stocks appear to be 

 now further advanced in the same progress. 



In another famous potatoe growing country, Nova Scotia, 

 the progress of the disease, and its arrest, speak volumes in 



