74 The Potatoe Plague. 



juice is able properly to digest, The imperfectly converted 

 aliment produces various kinds of inconvenience, and, if 

 persevered in, derangement of the whole system, though the 

 food itself in moderation may be perfectly wholesome. 



It would be doing injustice to the theory before stated, if 

 it were sent forth to the public without a brief notice of 

 some of the objections which at once occur to those conver- 

 sant with the subject. The first that I shall allude to is, 

 that the management of seed potatoes during winter, the 

 mode of planting, and more especially the nature of the 

 season after planting, exercise a very decided influence in 

 modifying or increasing the potatoe failure ; which, at first 

 sight, seems hardly reconcilable with the supposition that 

 such failure is dependent on the degree of maturity of the 

 seed potatoes when harvested. I at once admit that if seed 

 potatoes are kept in too large a heap and allowed to fer- 

 ment, or if kept so warm as to induce excessive growth 

 during winter, or in any other way are so treated as to 

 weaken their vitality, the sets will, many of them, fail, and 

 others make weak and unhealthy shoots, very much resem- 

 bling, and possibly identical with, curl. It must be borne in 

 mind, however, that though I consider over-ripening of the 

 seed to be the ordinary cause of curl, I by no means assert 

 that it is the only one. I am well aware that deficient man- 

 agement will, especially if followed by long drought, produce 

 failing crops, and whether such failure be due to curl or not, 

 ^T can offer no opinion ; but the great puzzle to potatoe 

 growers has been that, with the most careful management, 

 failures continually occur, and these failures may, I think, be 

 traced to ripe sets. That the influence of season is great 

 I should be the last man to deny, as in two instances where 

 my potatoe crops were affected with curl, (distinctly traceable 

 to having used ripe sets,) they continued to get worse so long 

 as the drought lasted, but on the occurrence of heavy rains 



