1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



45 



each town, who examined the corn growing in 

 the fields, and measured one acre of each plot. 

 They then made oath to the yield of the single 

 acre, and of the whole five estimated from the 

 acre actually measured. The award made, under 

 oath, was for 8o7S bushels of shelled corn on five 

 acres, or 171^ bushels to the acre. 



If this has been excelled at any other time, or 

 in any other place, we shall be glad to hear of it. 

 Till we do, we shall put Vanderburg County, 

 Indiana, at the head of the corn column — unless 

 we hear of some mistake in the above report. 



I'^or the New England Farmer. 

 "POTATO DISEASE." 



Mr. Editor : — For several years past, I have 

 made it an almost invariable rule to omit the 

 reading of any article in your paper, if its head- 

 ing indicated that it treated of the "potato dis- 

 ease," — more especially if it professed to expound 

 the cause of the disease and prescribe a remedy. 

 There have been such multitudes of various and 

 contradictory causes put forth, each claiming to 

 be the certainly true one ; such a variety of in- 

 fallible recipes for the prevention and cure of 

 the plague, that I am ready freely to acknowl- 

 edge myself a skeptic in regard to ninety-and- 

 nine-hundredths of them. An inquiring mind 

 is an object of my especial respect ; I would not 

 discourage any one from the most searching in- 

 quisition into any of the wonderful and interest- 

 ing works and ways of nature around him. It 

 has often happened that important discoveries 

 have been made for science, by those belonging 

 to what is called the unlearned class ; and even 

 if no important fact, before unknown, should 

 be brought to light, yet the habit of a wide awake 

 observation of what is going on around him, is 

 of incalculable importance to the individual, as 

 a means of giving activity and strength and clear- 

 ness to his intellectual faculties, and of improv- 

 ing the manhood of the real man. But I would 

 ask that their discoveries be not published to 

 the world as absolute verities, till they have been 

 tested under difl'erent circumstances for several 

 seasons, with a single and sincere desire to get 

 at the truth, with no bending of facts to the sup- 

 port of favorite preconceived theories. 



I did not intend to make so long an introduc- 

 tion to my story. I merely intended to say, that 

 I was, last spring, induced to read a letter from 

 an English farmer, introduced to your readers 

 by Judge French — and they will doubtless all 

 agree with me that what he is willing to recom- 

 mend will generally be found worthy of a care- 

 ful consideration. This Englishman's letter gave 

 a detailed account of planting potatoes with a 

 pea inserted in each one, and the result was the 

 absence of rot in those so planted, while others, 

 planted without the pea, in the same or adjoin- 

 ing fields, were badly affected. (I write this from 

 my recollection of the letter, and may not be ex- 

 actly correct.) _ This had, at first sight, the as- 

 pect of an empirical remedy ; but my confidence 

 in the Judge's character for judicious caution in 

 his statements, led me to try the experiment, but 

 in a modified form. Instead of cutting the po- 

 tato and inserting the pea in it, I merely planted 

 two or three peas in each hill. This was tried 



with about a half peck of chenangoes, a variety 

 that has so invariably suffered badly from the 

 rot, that I had not intended to plant them again ; 

 and the result was almost entire freedom from 

 disease among them, though the varieties that I 

 planted for my main crop were more than usually 

 aff"ected. How the pea-vine operated, if it had 

 any efifect, is not for me to say. Perhaps it might 

 be l)y absorbing into its own tissues some ele- 

 ment in the atmosphere that is deleterious to the 

 potato ; perhaps it exhales elements, that, com- 

 bining with the surrounding air, so affect its con- 

 dition as to make it suitable and wholesome for 

 the potato. But, before theorizing extensively 

 on the how, perhaps it is best to ascertain if it 

 has any effect. This is not put forth as a certain 

 remedy ; it has not been sufliiciently tested. I 

 intend to try it an a larger scale next year. And 

 if any one of your readers has perused this arti- 

 cle, I hope he will assist in giving a fair and thor- 

 ough trial of the proposed remedy under differ- 

 ent circumstances, by carefully observed experi- 

 ments, and note the result. Minot Pratt. 

 Concord, Nov. 27, 1858. 



NIGHT-AIR. 



During the months of September and October, 

 throughout tlie United States, v;herever there 

 are chills, and fever and ague, intermittents, or 

 the more deadly forms of fever, it is a pernicious, 

 and even dangerous practice, to sleep with the 

 outer doors or windows open ; because miasm, 

 marsh emanations, the product of decaying veg- 

 etation — all of which are difi'erent terms, express- 

 ing the same thing — is made so light by heat, 

 that it ascends at once towards the upper por- 

 tion of atmospheric space, and is not breathed 

 during the heat of the day, but the cool nights 

 of the fall of the year condense it, make it heavy, 

 and it settles on the ground, is breathed into 

 the lungs, incorporated into the blood ; and if 

 in its concentrated form, as in certain localities 

 near Rome, it causes sickness and death within 

 a few hours. The plagues which devastated 

 Eastern countries in earlier ages, were caused by 

 the concentrated emanations from marshy local- 

 ities, or districts of decaying vegetation ; and 

 the common observation of the higher class of 

 people was, that those who occupied the upper 

 stories, not even coming down stairs for market 

 supplies, but drew them up by ropes attached to 

 baskets, had entire immunity from disease, for 

 two reasons, the higher the abode, the less com- 

 pact is the deadly atmosphere, besides, the high- 

 er rooms in a house, in summer, are the warmer 

 ones, and the miasm less concentrated. The 

 lower rooms are colder, making the air more 

 dense. So, by keeping all outer doors and win- 

 dows closed, especially the lower ones, the build- 

 ing is less cool and comfortable, but it excludes 

 the infectious air, while its warmth sends what 

 enters through the crevices immediately to the 

 ceilings of the rooms, where it congregates, and 

 is not breathed ; hence is it that men who en- 

 tered the bar-room and dining-saloons of the 

 National Hotel, remaining but a few brief hours, 

 were attacked with the National Hotel Disease, 

 while ladies who occupied upper rooms, where 

 constant fires were burning, escaped attack, al- 



