NOVEMBER, 1881. 81 



fostering the fungus that produces disease ? Many are 

 the possibilities of injury to potatoes between the first 

 planting and the placing in pits, and even thereafter, ere 

 they are converted into food or cash for the cultivator. 

 Fortunately we are far better off than those in happier 

 districts (for ordinary cultivation) are to-day, for most of 

 the potato crop of Benderloch is secured. But disease 

 has not wholly avoided them, and those few muggy days 

 of early autumn have secured their prey; while the few 

 days' frost in June have simply left certain sheltered 

 portions of ground entirely clear of shaws or tubers, so 

 far as edible quality or size goes. One peculiarity of our 

 hardy blue potato is that it can be pitted during wet 

 weather with impunity, a valuable quality in our moist 

 climate. 



Alongside a fair potato harvest for the majority of our 

 cultivators, we have a most unusually successful supply 

 of the second great constituent of a true Highland break- 

 fast viz., herring. Fish trains have been regularly dis- 

 patched from Oban for the South, freighted from the 

 immediate vicinity with large fine herring; and Bender- 

 loch was not without a proportion of the harvest of the 

 sea. But it was not so well prepared to take advantage 

 of this uncertain produce as it ought to be, and, while 

 we understand from a reliable observer, that Loch Linnhe 

 was alive with a great herring "school," such as our 

 venerable informant had never seen before, no boats 

 from our quarter were able to participate in the fishery. 

 A detachment, however, found their w r ay into Ardmuck- 

 nish Bay, and provided amply for those in the vicinity, 

 as the poor fish were actually pressing on to the rocks of 

 the shore, and were readily captured with the seine net. 

 No sooner was this generally known than a rush of boats 



