650 POTATO ROT. 



sea ; also circulation of air between the tubers ; hence the ne- 

 cessity of porous soils. 



RoBBiNS, L. T., Plymouth, thinks he has discovered a sure 

 remedy in the following " Recipe. — Turn two quarts of boiling 

 water to half a pint of coal tar ; mix with one bushel slacked 

 lime, or in that proportion for a greater or less quantity ; put 

 one gill of this mixture in the hill at planting, and when the 

 bloom appears on the plant, sift a small quantity over the plant 

 and round near the root." 



RoDGERS, T. P., Boston. Prevention. — " Take potatoes un- 

 infectedj and whose ancestors were uninfected ; plant on com- 

 mon mowing without manure, or on land no richer, and have 

 them covered nine inches during the warm, wet weather, about 

 harvest time. This method I have seen tried in this and other 

 states many times without fail, 



SouLE, JoNA., Middleborough (four papers). Cause. — Owing 

 partly to soil. A black heavy soil will be more disposed to the 

 rot, than a light, porous soil. He recommends coarse, strawy, 

 barn manure. He thinks the rot is occasioned by rain about 

 the time the potato is maturing in August. 



Spooner, Alden, Athol. An able essay of ten pages. He 

 supposes the cause to be in the atmosphere and soil acting on 

 the root and branch simultaneously, and most powerfully dur- 

 ing the humid and pestilential month of August. By actual 

 experiment he recommends bringing the subsoil over the top 

 soil for cultivation. He says, " I made two trenches in differ- 

 ent parts of my field, twenty feet long and two feet wide. I 

 drew off the surface soil on one side, and threw up the subsoil on 

 the other, to the depth of five or six inches below the bottom 

 of the surface soil. I then drew into the bottom the surface 

 soil and drew over it the subsoil taken from the bottom, to the 

 depth of five or six inches. I then spread over some good, fine 

 manure, mixed with some plaster and ashes, causing the whole 

 to be well incorporated with the earth, making a wide, flat hill, 



