86 The Potatoe Plague, 



hence the facility with which the potatoe containing it under- 

 goes putrefaction. Any injury to health from the use of 

 these potatoes is out of the question, and nowhere in Ger- 

 many has such an effect been observed. It. may be of some 

 use to call attention to the fact that diseased potatoes may 

 easily and at little expense, be preserved for a length of 

 time, and afterwards employed in various ways, by cutting 

 them into slices about one quarter of an inch thick, and im- 

 mersing them in water containing two to three per cent, of 

 sulphuric acid. After twenty-four or thirty-six hours the 

 liquor may be drawn off, and all remains of it washed away 

 by steeping in successive portions of freh water. Treated 

 in this manner the potatoes are easily dried. The pieces are 

 white and of little weight, and can be ground to flour and 

 baked into bread along with the flour of wheat. I think it 

 probable that the diseased potatoes, after being sliced and kepi 

 for some time in contact with weak sulphuric acid, so as to 

 be penetrated by the acid, may be preserved in that state in 

 pits. 



An advocate of the theory that the disease is caused by 

 fungus, gives the following statement: "That this disease 

 is occasioned by a fungus in the leaf, I have no doubt, and 

 such I believe is the public opinion in general. I am equally 

 well assured that the gangrene or mortification is a mere con- 

 sequence of the fungus. If a certain predisposition in the 

 potatoe plant, occasioned by an advanced state of the ele- 

 ments themselves, were alone necessary to give unbounded 

 scope to this fungus, how, I would ask, has it happened, that 

 this strange condition of atmosphere has never occurred be- 

 fore, since the introduction of the potatoe from South Ameri- 

 ca now, I believe, nearly two hundred years ? Or, shall it 

 be said that the disease is indeed new to Europe? On look- 

 ing over the weather registries for the month of August, I 

 find that S. W., W., and N. W. winds prevailed through 



