farmers' miscellany. 93- 



vated and the disease has not prevailed — that all soils have been 

 alike liable to it, and that portions of the crop may be found per- 

 fectly sound even in the same hill where others decay, it cannot 

 be decided that this is the cause. And if it does not result from 

 defect in the soil, it cannot be supposed to be so in the tubers. As 

 ■will appear hereafter, plants growing side by side may be one bad 

 and the other sound. 



2. Unfavorable weather. In the summer of 1843 a long and 

 severe drought occurred, followed by heavy rains and continued 

 hot weather. Just at this time the disease was first noticed in this 

 country. Of course the weather was universally set down as the 

 cause, and the trouble was not looked for again. But in 1844, a 

 season totally different from the former, it occurred to a greater 

 extent than before, and this could no longer be regarded as a suf- 

 ficient reason. 



3. An insect^ or worm. I was inclined to pass over this as utterly 

 undeserving notice, farther than mere mention. But I have con- 

 cluded to insert some clippings from a few papers, showing up the 

 notion. The " Massachusetts Cataract" contains a communication 

 from Henry M. Paine, on the subject. He states that he has ex- 

 amined the diseased potatoes with a microscope magnifying nine 

 thousand times. He found an insect near the juncture of the 

 stalk and root, with " a body shaped like the soldier ant, and legs 

 like the hairy garden spider." 



The editor of the "Newsletter," Westfield, Mass., says the 

 disease is not owing to an epidemic influence operating as a disease, 

 &c., but to an insect that has made it a nidus for the perpetuation 

 of its species." He says farther, that from some of the infected 

 potatoes " may be seen the insect in its pupa state, escaping ; in 

 others, you may, on boiling, find the rudiment of the insect in em- 

 bryo : and in others, no insect will be found, they having escaped 

 into the ground." 



A writer in the " Washington Post," Salem, N. Y., says, after 

 describing the appearance of the disease, " The perforations in the 

 skin appear to be made by the different kinds of worms. The 

 most numerous are about half an inch in lenjTth, of a brown color, 

 body oval when full size. The other is a small brown worm, body 

 round, and the size of pin wire, an inch in length ; on the potatoes 

 are small white spots, resembling potatoe starch, which I at first 



