POTATO ROT. 675 



Watendyke, C. a., Newton, N. J., has tried the following 

 experiment three years, with unfailing success, while his neigh- 

 bors have lost almost their whole crops of potatoes by the 

 disease. 



As to the ground for planting, care should be taken to select 

 dry, loamy soil, and to avoid low, wet ground. 



" Prepare the ground in the nsual way for planting in hills ; 

 put in the potatoes and sprinkle in every hill, over the pota- 

 toes, one gill of lime, (if the ground is very rich, a little more 

 can be used,) then cover over the potatoes with ground as 

 usual. Then take five bushels of lime, one bushel of ashes, half 

 a bushel of fine salt, and half a bushel of ground plaster, mix well 

 together ; and of this composition sprinkle over every hill one 

 large table spoonful. Plant early. This experiment costs but 

 little time and expense, and will add richness to the soil." 



The mode adopted by many of trying to save the crop, after 

 the vine begins to die, Mr. W. considers futile in the extreme, 

 the poison having already done its work, and will, sooner or 

 later, appear. The only way is to commence right, by making 

 the ground healthy with such articles as have a purifying ten- 

 dency. 



Wild, Robert, Montello Falls, Wis., writes, requesting 

 further information. 



Wood, J. C, New York, N.- Y., believes that his experience 

 will entitle his suggestions to consideration. He, like Messrs. 

 Dawson, Hooke, and other sensible writers, believes that the 

 power of reproduction from the tuber of the potato, is not per- 

 petual, but may be, and has been, exhausted by length of time. 

 He says, the potato plant in its healthy state produces abun- 

 dance of seeds. The plant blossoms, the blossoms fall, and are 

 succeeded by small white balls, full of seeds, which, if planted, 

 produce small potatoes the first year and full sized ones the 

 third year. Nature having thus provided, in the seeds, a nat- 

 ural power of reproduction, it is evident that the plant is per- 

 petuated by the root, or without resorting to the seed ; nor can 

 a healthy plant exist from the seeds produced from a sickly 



