THE DISEASE IN POTATOES. 265 



the ablest vegetable chemists in Europe have since arrived. For one, if that paper 

 be still in existence, we should be glad to see and compare it with more recent 

 researches, and even to preserve it as a matter merely of justice to the individual, 

 and of agricultural history ; and, as far as it goes, as a proof of our claim to " pri- 

 ority of discovery." With men of the true stamp, discoveries of the mind are 

 far more preciously esteemed than discoveries oi mines ; and the society or com- 

 munity that does not well guard its fellow members in the possession of the hon- 

 ors thus hardly earned by intellectual courage and labor, but illy consults its 

 own welfare. 



It seems, too, not the less remarkable that Mr. Teschemacher's communica- 

 tion to the same Society, accompanied by eight or nine samples of various 

 qualities of guano, with the analysis of each, as we see stated in the Patent- 

 Oflfice Agricultural Report of 1846, page 514, Doc. 140, has been in like manner 

 withheld from the public. Was it that the Prize Essay afterward publi.shed 

 happened to embrace enough of similar views and analyses to render the publi- 

 cation of his communication unnecessary ? 



It has been gratifying, nevertheless, to see that his Essay on Guano, the most 

 elaborate, scientific- and practical we have had, and which was published else- 

 where in this country, we believe in that lamented organ of New-England Agri- 

 culture, the New-England Farmer, has attracted notice and been published 

 widely and approvingly in England. 



These annual volumes put out by the New- York State Agricultural Society 

 are doubtless prepared with due circumspection and impartiality ; still it will not 

 be ofiensive to any fair mind to have it suggested that our men of science get so 

 inadequately paid, when paid at all, for the hardest sort of labor, that too much 

 pains cannot be taken to see that when they do work for nothing and find them- 

 selves, the public be allowed to enjoy the benefit of their gratuitous services, and 

 the opportunity of paying them in costless thanks at least. For every periodical 

 there is trash enough to be had, if the publishers go for quantity. We would not 

 dare ask it of men of real science, with whom minutes are hours, to write for 

 The Farmers' Library, but we are much mistaken if when such men as Jackson 

 and Teschemacher do put pen to paper on questions of agricultural science, there 

 is much said that would deserve to be suppressed. 



As TO THE Remedy. — In the same unpublished and unnoticed communication 

 from Teschemacher to the New- York State Agricultural Society, he suggested 

 salt as the remedy or preventive of the potato rot, and we have been told that 

 this remedy has been signally efficacious in many cases where it has been tried 

 in the neighborhood of Boston, many having there tried it whose potatoes have 

 escaped, while all around suffered. Below we give instances reported in late 

 numbers of the London Gardeners' Chronicle to the same effect. But here again 

 it is our duty to state (being absolutely unprejudiced and impartial on this sub- 

 ject, as we endeavor to be on all) that in the same number the Editor of that 

 journal, standing high as a botanist, at home and abroad, and having bestowed 

 on this matter perhaps more thought and observation than almost any man liv- 

 ,ing, seems to be utterly at a loss and confounded. After referring to the sev- 

 eral remedies recommended, and lime and salt among the rest, he says : " For 

 ourselves, we feel it to be as presumptuous in ourselves as in others to hazard 

 any recommendations, where all is confessedly most uncertain ; nevertheless we 

 cannot shun the responsibility which attaches to our position." He then goes 

 on to recommend " Autumn planting," as the best under the circumstances, 



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