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OIN THE POTATO 



BY KEV. JOHN M. MERRICK, OF WALPOLE, MASS. 



In the following remarks, I confine myself within a narrow range, 

 and leave unsaid many things respecting the culture, gathering, pre- 

 servation and uses of potatoes, which might perhaps have been in- 

 teresting to the farmers of Norfolk County. I shall speak briefly of 

 the history, uses, planting and diseases of the potato, — in the hope 

 that this imperfect essay may provoke my fellow-citizens to deeper 

 investigations, to more numerous and intelligent experiments with 

 reference to these subjects. Diligent inquiries and accurate ex- 

 periments promise the only satisfactory results. The members of 

 this Society are earnestly requested to preserve their farm journals, 

 that at some subsequent occasion we may compare notes, and from 

 our united efforts increase our knowledge and learn the best methods 

 of applying it to practice.* 



1. History of the Potato. 



It is remarkable that the history of a plant which has exerted so 

 great an influence upon the civilization of the world, should be in- 

 volved in so much obscurity. It is difficult, if not impossible, to ascer- 

 tain the time at which, or the nations by whom, it was transported 

 from South America to distant regions. The Spaniards found it 

 only in Chili, — though recently it has been said to grow wild in 

 Peru, New Granada, and Mexico. Humboldt quotes He la Vega 

 as saying, that in the times of the Incas, maize and potatoes, and, 



* I have recently received a letter from an intelligent member of our Society 

 now in England. From diligent inquiries, in several agricultural Counties, he 

 learns that the potato rot prevails extensively this season ; and that the potatoes 

 not diseased are very few, small and of inferior quality. Such facts here and 

 there should furnish a motive to careful and continued experiments, if we would 

 not abandon the cultivation of a plant so intimately connected with our agri- 

 cultural prosperity. 



