farmers' miscellany. 95 



been stored in this way as long as I can recollect, and if this would 

 have injured them, it ought to have done so years ago. But I 

 aver, that if there is vitality enough in the eye of a potatoe to 

 sprout and to reach the surface of the ground, this cause cannot 

 operate. The new roots are sent out from the bottom of the new 

 shoot immediately after it starts, and then draw nourishment from 

 the ground. These shoots may be entirely separated from the old 

 potatoe and planted, and w^ill produce a good crop. 



6. Manuring in the hill ; and 7. Manuring the land. These 

 amount to one and the same thing. It has beeri observed, in some 

 cases, that where manure has been freshly applied, the disease 

 has been worse than where none had been used. A writer in 

 the " Newburgh Telegraph," says : 



" We planted a small patch of potatoes upon a very heavy soil, 

 turned over a few weeks before planting. From this we had 

 twelve bushels, about half of which turned out bad. In an old 

 garden, separated from this by a fence, where no manure was ap- 

 plied last year, and, as far as we can ascertain, for two or three 

 years, we gathered sixteen bushels, not one of which was bad. 

 The latter, however, it might be mentioned, were planted earliest." 



And further, that a farmer in that county stated, that in the 

 same field, where it was manured, the crop was an entire loss, 

 while in a portion that had no manure, the crop was good, ^A 

 writer from Columbia county, in the same paper, states his expe- 

 rience as the same. 



8. Atmospheric causes. The following from the Amherst Ex- 

 press, suggests this opinion. 



" I strongly suspect that the strange disease, which for several 

 years has so deeply affected the sycamore, plane, or buttonwood 

 tree, {Plataiius occidentalism is analogous to that which has now 

 assailed the potatoe. I was struck with the resemblance, when cut 

 open, between a partially decayed branch of the sycamore, and a 

 potatoe in the same state. I do not believe that in either case the 

 disease results from parasitic plants or insects : two fruitful sources 

 of disease to plants. Why may it not be some atmospheric agen- 

 cy, too subtile for the cognizance of our senses, like those which 

 bring such epidemics as the influenza and the cholera over partic- 

 ular districts or continents 1 Modern science has shown us that 

 many of the most powerful agencies of nature are concealed from 



