Ch, XX-II.] ON POTATOES, 279 



medal of the Society, accord with many other of the writers who have 

 stated their views, in the opinion that the faihues liave been chiefly owing 

 to " ihe mildness of the winters, in conjunction with i?nproper manage- 

 ment." For, say they, — " Although farmers are generally unvviUing to 

 admit that their mode of management has at all contributed to produce 

 the injury, yet they cannot avoid acknowledging that a few years ago their 

 potato-crops were much less extensive than now, — that they then planted 

 earlier, — that they deferred digging them unlil the tops were entirely dead 

 and broken down, — that they allowed them to remain in tiie fields awhile, 

 in small covered heaps to dry and season before they stored them, — and 

 that, in spring, they deposited them in moderate quantities, in dry and airy 

 buildings, or in narrow pits, covering them well, when in pits, with straw, 

 dried fern, or dead tops, as well as with soil, and allowing sufficient ven- 

 tilation." While of late, the planting they state to be performed at a 

 later, and the digging up at an earlier period ; while the storing is generally 

 effected in a hurry, in large roomy pits containing upwards of two tons in 

 the length of a yard, covered with a heavy coating of earth, with little or 

 no straw, and without any means of ventilation. 



In corroboration of which he says, " that some of the purple sets 

 which were planted on a piece of ground wilhout any dung, all sprung up 

 very well ; yet where ground, which had been dunged, was planted witli 

 potatoes of both the purple and a white kind, without regard to whether 

 the skinny or the cut side was placed next the dung — the white sprung 

 well, while the purple proved defective *." 



A Correspondent in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, however, 

 conceives it to have arisen from " the cut sets having been 'planted 

 with their surface placed upon the dung, which had become, as it were, 

 glued to it." For, on digging up some ridges planted in trenches, at Lis- 

 burn, in Ireland, with a purple kind of potato, in order to ascertain the 

 cause of large blanks which apjjeared, — it was found that all the sets 

 which had been laid with their skinny sides upon the dung were sound, 

 and putting forth vigorous shoots ; while those of which the cut surfaces 

 were laid in contact with the dung were uniformly rotten. And on men- 

 tioning the fact to a friend, who had three fields of potatoes, one half of 

 which had failed, the injury was discovered, on examination, to have arisen 

 in the same manner. 



These conflicting testimonies would tend to show that it was not the 

 action of the dung by which the potatoes were afl'ected, and would lead 

 us to imagine that the decay of the purple sets was rather to be attri- 

 buted to some constitutional decay, were it not evident that they were un- 

 injured on that side which was protected by the skin. We are, therefore, 

 still in the dark regarding the origin of the failures which liave occurred, 

 and it is thus possible that none of the theories which we have stated may 

 touch the real cause; for it is obvious, that under the same circumstances 

 it has appeared at one time to be in the seed, at another in the soil, then 

 in the manure, or in the weather; and it is also evident that among the 

 numerous varieties of potatoes which are cultivated throughout tlie United 

 Kingdom, without regard to their peculiar properties, some must be more 

 congenial than others to particular soils and situations, and therefore more 

 or less exposed to injury, without our being able to discover in what the 

 difference consists. Yet certainly no harm can arise from paying strict 

 attention to all that we have already stated, — to the choice of mature and 



* Quart, Jouru, of Agrici N, S. vol, v. pp- 341 and 390. 



