154 Commercial Gardening 



form a spongy brownish or greenish scab, which finally becomes black. 

 The disease (which is notifiable under the Destructive Insects and Pests 

 Acts, 1877-1907) is said to cause most damage in gardens or allotments 

 where potatoes are grown every year. This is doubtful, as the writer 

 knows a garden where large quantities of potatoes have been grown year 

 after year for the past fifty years, and the Black Scab or Warty Disease 

 has not yet made its appearance. The soil in this case, however, is fairly 

 well and deeply cultivated and manured, and occasionally limed methods 

 which will apparently render almost any ordinary soil immune from the 

 disease. Badly afflicted ground, however, should be trenched or subsoiled 

 with the plough, and gas lime or freshly slaked lime, at the rate of 4 or 

 5 tons to the acre (56 to 70 Ib. to the square rod), should be worked in. 



Winter Rot. This fungoid disease, caused by Nectria Solani, attacks 

 stored potatoes, especially in moist or dark and warm situations. The 

 skin begins to shrivel and shrink, and white patches of fungus appear 

 on the surface, and in due course the crop of spores produced affect 

 surrounding tubers. To prevent attack, potatoes should be stored in cool, 

 dry, and well-ventilated places, and even then not in great heaps, but 

 in flat layers if possible. The tubers should be thoroughly dry before 

 storing, and flowers of sulphur may be sprinkled over and about them 

 to kill or check the fungus. Any diseased tubers should be picked out 

 from time to time and burned. 



Insect Enemies. The worst of these are the Millipedes or Julus 

 Worms and Wireworms. The former are often present in badly culti- 

 vated but highly manured soil, and cause a scabby appearance on the 

 tubers. Wireworms are generally present in freshly broken-up pasture 

 land, and can only be eradicated by frequent digging or ploughing, and 

 by encouraging crows, chickens, and other birds to pick them out of the 

 freshly broken soil. 



Kinds Of Potatoes to Grow. There is a vast difference between the 

 nran who grows Potatoes for private use and the one who grows for sale. 

 In the first case quality before quantity is the maxim. In the second, 

 quantity above all things, but quality in addition, if possible, is the guiding 

 star. Even amongst commercial growers there is a vast difference of 

 opinion as to which varieties are likely to yield the best returns. The 

 Jersey growers of early Potatoes almost to a man favour the "Royal 

 Kidney " (or International), while the Irish growers still stick to the old 

 'Champion". Indeed some 320,785 ac., or more than half the total for 

 Ireland, are recorded for 1908 as having been planted with this variety. 

 " Up-to-Date ", with over 92,000 ac., is a bad second ; while " Beauty of 

 Bute ", " Black Skerries ", and " Flounders " (another very old Irish Potato) 

 are bad thirds with over 30,000 ac. each. Then come " Sutton's Abundance " 

 (21,900 ac.), "British Queen" (20,477 ac.), and "Irish Whites" (17,120 ac.). 

 The rest " American Early Rose", "White Elephant", "Gawkies", and 

 " Scottish Triumph " are simply nowhere at present so far as Ireland 

 is concerned. Such fine croppers as " The Factor ", " Duchess of Corn- 



