THEORY OF THE DISEASE. ' 201 



cold, it becomes more alarming, as it goes on not- 

 withstanding such variations and is gaining ground 

 from year to year. 



The first thing the mind does in such a case is 

 to seek out the cause of the disease, in order thence 

 to deduce the cure. But the multitude of causes 

 which continue to be assigned is proof that no suf- 

 ficient one has as yet been discovered; hence the 

 remedies, as in all such cases, are perplexing by 

 their variety, and wearisome because of their doubt- 

 ful or hopeless application. To account for the 

 disease by the state of the soil, the character of the 

 season, the heat of the manure, the preparation of 

 the sets, or the period of their exposure to the sun, 

 must be vain, seeing that all such causes have oc- 

 curred in the course of a hundred years without 

 producing the effect that is now deplored. 



The author, though he cannot boast of bringing 

 forward a cure, is yet led to the humble task of 

 recording the malady, in order that his book may 

 not be inconsistent with the events of history be- 

 longing to the things of which it treats, or seem 

 guilty of a glaring anachronism, as it would, were 

 he, in writing of the potato, to take no notice of its 

 failure, at a time when the subject is under debate, 

 and greatly interesting not only by the loss which 

 the grower sustains, but by the progress of an evil 

 as yet unremedied and threatening the food on 

 which millions of our race depend. It may not be 

 without use, however, to remark, that though we 

 have had the experience of a hundred years with- 

 out such failure, yet is the event not so anomalous 



