THE MANSE GARDEN. 181 



continue to be assigned is proof that no sufficient 

 one has as yet been discovered; hence the remedies, 

 as iu all such cases, are perplexing by their variety, 

 and wearisome because of their doubtful or hopeless 

 applicatibn. 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 occurred 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 re- 

 cording the malady, in order that his book may not 

 be inconsistent with the events of history belonging 

 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 un- 

 remedied 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 without such failure, 

 yet is the event not so anomalous as its novelty and 

 importance would make it appear. The diseases of 

 wheat have, from time to time, been as threatening ; 

 and had we as much depended for our food on red 

 clover or carrot or turnip as on the potato, the loss to 

 the grower had ere now been as deeply felt, and the 

 hopes of the consumer had been as darkly clouded. 



The whole circumstances of the potato failure fall 



