POTATO ROT. 649 



same experiment with the same success, incUiding his neigh- 

 bors, who had before lost all. 



O'Kane, Thomas, Boston. Preventive. — Put a small quan- 

 tity of lime and rock salt in the hill at planting. When the 

 potatoes are out of the ground, sprinkle over them a mixture of 

 common ashes and chimney soot. 



Proctor, John W., Danvers, incloses a communication from 

 Thaddeus William Harris, which concludes, that " insects have 

 no concern or connection with the potato disease." 



Reed, Lyman, Waltham (four papers). Presents a communi- 

 cation purporting to contain his investigations, sealed up and 

 addressed to the governor of a future year. 



RiDGEWAY, T, S., (geologist) Mansfiold, furnishes a histor- 

 ical account of the potato from its original discovery in Co- 

 lumbia and Peru, in South America, where it was found wild 

 in its native soil on the slopes of the Andes, several thousand 

 feet above the level of the sea. Thence it was taken, some 

 250 years ago, into Spain and England ; and from the last 

 named country it was introduced into Ireland, where the field 

 cultivation became so general, that it gave rise to the name of 

 "Irish potato." He believes that the primary, or true cause of 

 the disease, is owing to the removal of the plant from a rarefied 

 atmosphere, several thousand feet above the sea, to a dense one 

 containing a superabundance of hydrogen near the sea. 



The condition of the atmosphere in which a majority of the 

 potato crops have been raised for the last eighty years is totally 

 uncongenial with the plant. Secondary causes, generating 

 curl, rust, stem rot and wet rot, are sudden transitions of 

 weather, over cultivation, by the application of too much ma- 

 nure in the shape of dung, ammonia, alkali, &c. ; also inferior 

 planting localities, such as compact soils, low lands, &c. 



Cure. — •'' Get the tuber or seed from its indigenous soil, — 

 Columbia or Peru, South America." The potato requires a 

 rarefied atmosphere, containing less moisture than that near the 

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