THE POTATO DISEASE. 239 



materially reduce the price of sugar and divert planters from that business ? I 

 very niucli cjuestiou any permanent fall in the price of sugar. Let any one scru- 

 tinize our imports — ascertain the amount of sugar entered at our Custorii-Huuses ; 

 add to it the amount produced in the United Slates, and then estimate the quan- 

 tity that must be consumed in our cotmtry, and 1 think he will come to the con- 

 clusion I have long entertained, that under our high Tariff an immense propor- 

 tion of the sugar used in the United States has heen smuggled. The present 

 duty will offer no bounty on smuggling. At any rate, it is pretty certain that 

 since the British West Indies have been falling off in the production of sugar, the 

 demand for it has been gaining on the supply. The reduction of our Tariff, or the 

 British Tariff, and the reductions contemplated in Russia and the Zollverein, 

 will give a still greater impulse to consumption, and leave it scarcely doubtful that 

 for the next ten years sugar will command as high a price as it has done for teu 

 years past. S. B. 



THE POTATO DISEASE. 



REPORT ON THE DISEASE OF THE POTATO CROP IN SCOTLAND IN THE YE.UI 1845. 



The Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland, impressed with the imnort- 

 ance of placing on record the results of the experience of agriculturists regarding 

 the disease which had so widely affected the potato crop last year, directed at- 

 tention to the subject, in a paper drawn up with care, which has been widely 

 circulated in the agricultural districts of that country. 



The points to which this learned and patriotic Society invoked inquiry were, 

 the period at which the disease manifested itself; the state of the weather ; 

 the appearances presented by the stem, leaves, flowers, and tubers ; the degree 

 in which different varieties were affected ; whether potatoes recently obtained 

 from seeds have been less subject to the disease than those which have been long 

 raised from sets or tubers ; whether any particular condition of the soil as to 

 wetness, previous cultivation, or the kinds of manures used, appear to have had 

 any influence in promoting, retarding, or preventing the disease ; and, finally, as 

 to the mode of storing the potatoes. With an alacrity and public spirit which 

 cannot be too warmly admired or too earnestly commended to the emulation and 

 the shame of agriculturists in some countries, all these queries have been an- 

 swered by many of the most distinguished farmers in the country. These an- 

 swers have been most carefully sifted and the results classified and presented in 

 the clearest form. 



The Society in their publication quote from 132 replies to these several queries, 

 and give the result in a brief summary, for which we hope to find room in our next. 

 Here is capital material, in these answers in extenso, for the United States Gov- 

 ernment agricultural periodical. They Avill altogether make about as much [200 

 pages] as was published in their last under the title of " Patent Office Report ;" 

 and though this part of the document, like its predecessor, will have no merit of 

 originality, it will be ten times more valuable than much of the trash that ap- 

 pears in that crude, chaffy and ill-digested annual. Like that, too, this dish of 

 murphies may be spread before the sovereign people at a cost to the Government 

 of not over $20,000. In the mean time, we will serve up the essential extract 

 and substance of it to our readers for not more than five cents each. We will 

 only anticipate the results of this careful and authentic examination of a subject 

 of the greatest importance, so far as to state now, that nearly all the reporters 



