POTATO DISEASEo 119 



tables, earth, or stones ; and algse (sea-weeds) where water is 

 the medium in which it is developed."** 



Well, even now we are not much disposed to dissent from the 

 learned Doctor's conclusions, for as yet we hardly view the 

 Peronospora as the caicse of potato disease but rather as the 

 effect thereof, still we cannot help concluding that Mr. Smith is 

 right as to these resting spores being constantly in readiness to 

 aid in spreading the attack when the conditions weie present for 

 their development. To quote again from Mr. Smith's learned 

 essay ; — 



"Botanists everjrwhere were incessantly looking for a secondary 

 state of the fungus, and the result was invariably nil. One 

 person only, a French botanist named Montague, once saw some 

 mysterious bodies in decayed potatoes, which he could not 

 understand. These minute organisms he transferred to the 

 admirable English botanist who is still amongst us — the Eev. 

 M. J. Berkeley — and the latter gentleman at once published 

 his belief that the bodies, imperfect as they were, and 

 unattached to the potato fungus proper, were no other than 

 the hibernating germs of the fungus of the potato murrain. 

 From lack of sufficient material Mr. Berkeley was unable to give 

 any actual proofs of the correctness of his ideas, but from his 

 first printed opinion he never departed. Mr. Berkeley fortun- 

 ately preserved the specimens between pieces of talc, but no 

 other person could ever again light on the mysterious bodies 

 once found by Dr. Montague. Now the year 1875 was a terrible 

 year for the potato disease ; instead of appearing in July it 

 was upon us in May. Horticulturists bewailed ihe advent of a 

 ' new disease ' of potatoes, and specimens of the ' new disease ' 

 were sent to the writer of these lines for examination. The 

 ' new disease ' proved to be the old disease in disguise, and 

 whilst the writer of this notice was one night examining and 

 re-examining the early and abnormal developments of Perono- 

 spora infestans, some of the round bodies, as originally seen by 

 Dr. Montague, were suddenly displayed before his eyes on the 

 * Lindley's "Natural System of Botany," 2iid Ed., page 418. 



