ON THE POTATO DISEASE. 



By Professor J. BUCKHAN, F.L.S., F.G.S., Sfc., 



ijS the potato disease has shown itself this year at an 

 earlier period than we ever before remember, we pur- 

 pose giving a few notes upon it, in order to point out 

 what has been done towards elucidating the life history of the 

 fungi engaged in the attack. 



It is generally supposed that this fell disease, if it did not 

 commence so late as 1845, had only been in existence a few 

 years before, but to quote Mr. J. Worthington Smith : 



" Nothing can be more fallacious than the supposition that the 

 potato disease is of comparatively recent origin ; plants suffered 

 from very similar diseases when the entire conformation of the 

 world was quite different from what it now is. Even in the 

 remote carboniferous epoch of geologists plants were affected by 

 a similar malady, for fossil plants have been formed in the coal 

 measures with their tissues corroded and disorganised by a 

 fungus hardly to be distinguished in external characteristics and 

 miscroscopical details from that which causes the potato disease 

 of the present day."* 



In the memorable year 1845 we read a paper on the potato 

 disease, in which the following remarks occur : 



" From all considerations of the question we are led to the 

 conclusion that this unusual attack upon the potato is the result 

 of a concurrence of circumstances, which can seldom combine to 

 * See " Science for All," part 31, page 213. 



