No. 7. 



Duty on Hops. 



215 



it will depend on the quality of the soil and 

 the sort of potatoe used, to what height that 

 is to be done. 



7th. It is injurious to the growth of the 

 tubers to cut off the leaves and to pluck off 

 the flowers; the later the season is, at which 

 the leaves are out, the more the future crop 

 is diminished, as the plant will spend part 

 of the substance accumulated in the tuber 

 in forming new sprouts. 



Hot, a contagious epidemic. — Martins con- 

 siders the rot of the potatoe as an epidemi- 

 cal disease, being contagious under certain 

 dispositions, and having its seat in the tuber, 

 in which it produces a peculiar decomposi- 

 tion and destruction of its form, which at a 

 certain stage of the disease, renders it unfit 

 for self-preservation and propagation, and 

 terminates with the production of a peculiar 

 mushroom — Fusisporium Solani. Martius 

 ascribes to the seed grains, or spnrules of 

 the latter, the capacity of infecting other 

 tubers already predisposed to this disease, 

 so as to produce in them the rot. 



Fries, in his Systema Alicologicum, and 

 linger, think the rot, as well as the ergot 

 in the grain, to be produced by cosmic causes, 

 and not to be contagious at all. Sinclair, 

 Link, and De Candolle, on the other hand, 

 think it contagious, and the last mentioned 

 scholar believes that the seed grains of the 

 smut — Uredo — come always from below, out 

 of the ground, in which they lie in great 

 numbers, into the plants which inhale them, 

 together with the water through their radi- 

 cles. This opinion corresponds with the 

 previous observations of Knight, Tillet, and 

 Tessier. 



The smut can then only develope itself, 

 when a diseased mixture of the juices has 

 been prepared by unfavourable terrestrial 

 and cosmical relations; as too fresh ma- 

 nure, sudden changes from cold to heat, or 

 vice versa, great wetness, too early harvest- 

 ing. 



Experiments have been made concerning 

 the contagiousness of the Fusisporium So- 

 lani. When its seed grains were sown 

 upon slices of both diseased and healthy po- 

 tatoes, the mushrooms developed themselves 

 very rapidly within three weeks. When 

 they were sown on the outside of a healthy 

 thin-skinned potatoe, its epidermis became 

 diseased, which might be seen by numerous 

 round dry spots of one-twenty-fourth of an 

 inch in diameter, and of a darker colour. 



Preventive remedies. — Martius does not 

 expect to see the rot cease entirely. In 

 order to prevent contagion, the ground of 

 places where infected potatoes liave been 

 kept, is to be strewn with pure dry sand or 

 ashes, and m cases of strong infection, straw 



might be burned in the cellar, or the walls 

 be whitewashed. The diseased potatoes 

 themselves are not to be thrown upon the 

 dunghill, but into the water, or to be buried. 

 Seed potatoes that come from fields infected 

 with the rot, before laying them, are to be 

 slightly moistened, to "be strewn with pow- 

 dered lime and ashes, and to be turned with 

 a shovel. Tubers that have not sprouted, 

 may be laid for some hours in lime water. 



The only remedy against the seed grains 

 of the mushroom buried in the ground, is to 

 raise in such a field as long as possible, other 

 fruits, and when about to raise again pota- 

 toes in it, to mix the soil with gypsum, loam, 

 lime, etc. Preservatives are : to select for 

 raising, some good sort; to separate the seed 

 potatoes from the very first from those de- 

 stined for food ; to sort the potatoes accord- 

 ing to their size ; to reject those apparently 

 healthy, that show discoloured roundish tu- 

 mors. 



To secure the potatoes in the cellar from 

 rot and scab, the cellar ought to be dry, and 

 if possible, laid out with dry boards, and 

 ought, to have a sufficient draught of air; 

 the floor to be strewn besides to the depth of 

 some inches with sand mixed with ashes, 

 coal dust, or fine iron filings. The potatoes 

 ought to be well dried before laying them 

 upon this. In heaps of more than four feet 

 high, horizontal poles ought to be stuck in 

 with dry brushwood round, to draw off the 

 vapours arising from them and the potatoes 

 to be laid upon the poles. 



Extracted and translated by 



Henry Scholl. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Duty on Hops, 



Paid by the farmers in England, who 

 grow them. 



To THE Editor, — Every one knows that 

 malt liquors of different qualities, constitute 

 the chief beverage of both rich and poor in 

 England, and the Government derives con- 

 siderable revenue from the duty levied on 

 the hops used in the brewing of them. 

 Some years since it was ascertained, that 

 immense quantities were made without the 

 use of either hops or malt, and to caution 

 my countrymen against the spurious articles, 

 I thought it a duty to insert three papers in 

 "Tlie Medical Recorder," and "Medical 

 Museum," of Philadelphia; in two of which 

 I gave a list of the various drugs used in 

 the brewing of the spurious liquor, taken 

 from works published in London; and in the 

 other, an official list of many persons con- 

 victed and fined for the offence. No impa- 



