1846.] Potato Disease. 99 



becomes decomposed. This vegetable distemper, like that of the 

 cholera, while general in its diffusion, is determined to particular 

 localities and plants by certain predisposing causes; yet it is in- 

 dependent of these, having occurred in many regions where such 

 causes did not materially operate. Whether it will recur, no 

 human being can predict; meanwhile it reads a great and solemn 

 lesson to the rulers of states, never better expressed than in Vir- 

 gil's well-known verse: 



" Disciti justitiam moniti, et non temnere divos ;" 



which may be translated, " Beware of obstructing the free supply 

 of food to your people." 



Many preposterous prescriptions have been obtruded on the 

 public eye as to the best method of preserving the diseased pota- 

 toes from putrefaction. The above researches show the exist- 

 ence of a highly fermentable saccharine and albuminous matter in 

 them, which becomes rapidly operative by contact with air and 

 moisture. Care should therefore be taken to keep their skins en- 

 tire, so as to exclude the atmospheric oxygen and humidity. It 

 is well known that the sugar in ripe grapes undergoes no change 

 while the skin is entire, but the moment this is pricked, the grapes 

 begin to ferment, and speedily spoil. No plan is therefore more 

 to be deprecated than that of slicing and mashing the potatoes. 

 They should be placed in an atmosphere kept by chemical means 

 in a state of extreme dryness, which may be easily and cheaply ef- 

 fected by piling them upon a bed of brush-wood, dry turf, or straw, 

 intespersing through the pile unslaked lime coarsly bruised, and 

 covering the pile thoroughly at the sides and on the top from the 

 external elements. Since unslaked lime absorbs greedily one- 

 third of its weight of moisture, it will bring the air in the spaces 

 between the tubers into a perfectly arid state — a condition in 

 which no decomposition of the substance can possibly take place. 

 On the same principle, highly-polished steel articles may be kept 

 for any length of time without tarnishing in our humid climate, 

 provided a basin with lumps of unslaked lime be enclosed in the 

 case or chest containing them. Slaked lime, on the contrary, 

 being saturated with water, has no power of desiccation, but acts 

 only by its causticity, in favoring the destruction of all vegetable 

 and animal matter. 



Activity. — I have lived, said Dr. Adam Clark, to know that 

 the great secret of human happiness is this: Never suffer your 

 energies to stagnate. The old adage of. Too many irons in the 

 fire, conveys an abominable lie. You cannot have too many, 

 poker, tongs and all: keep them agoing. 



