176 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



posed, be prevented by dressings of lime, soot, and 

 tobacco-water ; others suppose it is a disease com- 

 municated by the sets, in the same manner as in 

 unsound seed ; it has been charged upon frosts, 

 either before or after the sets were planted ; plant- 

 ing sets cut from large unripe potatoes ; planting 

 too near the surface, or on old, worn-out land ; and, 

 finally, Mr. Shirreff, " an ingenious speculator and 

 practical agriculturist, is of opinion that only two 

 causes can be assigned for the curled disorder in po- 

 tatoes. The first is excessive seed-bearing, that is, 

 carrying great quantities of apples ; from the ef- 

 fects of which, if the plant be not too far advanced 

 in life, it may recover for a time. The second 

 cause is time or old age, which never fails to bring 

 the curled or shrivelled disorder, followed by death, 

 on the whole animal and vegetable kingdom." 



From the very statement of these varying opin- 

 ions, most of them from men and societies of ac- 

 knowledged celebrity in agriculture, it is clear that, 

 as yet, but little is known respecting the cause of 

 the disease or its remedy. In the words of a writer 

 in the British Husbandry, " It probably arises more 

 from the temperature of the seasons in different 

 years than from any cause that can be controlled by 

 management ; but we conceive that it m.ay in some 

 measure be guarded against by occasionally chan- 

 ging the species grown upon the soil, and by always 

 paying close attention to the quality of the roots 

 from which the sets are to be cut, and choosing 

 tliem from those of the most fresh and perfect 

 growth. Plants which come up cui'led should be 

 treated like weeds, and hoed out, which evinces the 

 propriety of retaining more tlian one eye in a set, 

 so as to allow of cutting out the diseased planl 

 without creating blanks." 



In this country the disease is a new one. One of 

 the first notices we have seen of its existence here 

 was that given in the Genesee Farmer, from the pen 



