The Potatoe Plague. 91 



evil, are erroneous, and should they prove of no value, 

 I am quite ready to give them up and try again. 



A. B. Allen, Editor of the American Agriculturalist thus 

 sums up, in a few words, the whole subject. The disease is 

 probably a fungus. The best remedies are salt, lime and 

 charcoal. We recommend procuring new seedlings, and be 

 very careful not to let them get mixed with old ones. Plant 

 next spring without other manures than plaster, salt, lime, 

 charcoal or ashes. A good sod, with the addition of the 

 other materials, will be sufficiently rich to raise a large crop ; 

 and, depend upon it, if the seed be of a good variety, and it 

 escapes the rot, the crop will be sweet, mealy, and highly 

 nutritious the best for anjmals as well as for man. 



As the disease is more generally attributed to the attacks 

 of fungi than to any other cause, a few remarks on the cause 

 of fungi, will not be inappropriate to this inquiry, and I give 

 them place here. A writer in the Farmers' Cabinet says 



Close observation will show, that all plants of the fungi 

 tribe grow where there is a deficiency of alkalies. We never 

 see mushrooms, toadstools, or any thing of the kind, grow on 

 or near a heap of ashes or lime. But we almost invari&ly 

 see them growing on or near a pile of stable dung, or any 

 thing yielding a large proportion of carbonic acid. The cause 

 of this is easily demonstrated by chemistry. A chemical 

 analysis of plants of the fungi tribe, will show that they con- 

 tain an extremely small proportion of alkali, far smaller than 

 any other class of vegetables. The fact is of the highest im- 

 portance to farmers ; by its aid they can always tell when 

 their soils need alkaline substances to make them more pro- 

 ductive, without going to the trouble and expense of a chemi- 

 cal analysis of the soil for that purpose. Upon whatever 

 spot of ground the fungi make their appearance, there is a 

 want of alkali, and no time should be lost in supplying it, if 

 we would raise profitable crops ; for such crops as wheat, 



