No. 216.] 363 



away. When the workmen commenced digging the fourth piece, 

 fthey were dug in order of time planted;) they found of the Mer- 

 cers and Greys, about one fourth defective, and I did not think them 

 worth carting home; of the Carters, very few were injured; perhaps 

 not one in twenty. About two days after they were housed, we 

 found the rot progressing in those which we supposed sound when 

 carried in, and we overhauled them all; with the exception of the 

 Carters, we found as a general remark, the injury was in proportion 

 to the season of planting; the first planted not injured, the last plant- 

 ed nearly all lost. I was on the point of concluding that as I had been 

 most successful on my warm upland and light soil, perhaps the evil 

 might be avoided by planting such ground early; but a neighbor 

 who planted on such soil last year, early, lost most of his crop. 

 When conversing with a gentleman from Farmington, a few days 

 since, he remarked that all his early planting escaped the rot; while 

 all his late suffered. 



I offer no opinion, for I have formed none on the subject of the 

 cause; but as I said before, think we must go on collecting and pub- 

 lishing facts." 



We will make a short quotation or reference to high authority 

 of our own country. In one of Prof. Silliman's late journals, there 

 is an article on the potato disease; it notices experiments carefully 

 made on the root, by two eminent professors of European universi- 

 ties; one German, the other Dutch; as to the cause of the disease, 

 these gentlemen concluded that it cannot be insect or fungus; they 

 then proceed to try the weather, or atmosphere to find the cause 

 there. After many observations, and collecting numerous facts dur- 

 ing one or two seasons, in Holland and Germany; they intimate they 

 see something more like the cause, and which would equally affect 

 other plants; nothing conclusive though. The article observes on 

 this intimation, " when we acknowledge all these extraordinary facts, 

 we still are forced to look for some special pre-disposition, to dis- 

 ease among the potatoes themselves. In what, this special pre-dis- 

 position consists, it is nut easy to Say; if as seems possible, atmos- 

 pheric influences induce such chemical changes in our growing crops, 

 though we have found a cause, we have not found a remedy; to 

 guard field crops from atmospheric changes, is not an easy matter. 



Such changes may occur only at long intervals of years; but the 

 fact of their occurring at all, Mill be a warning to the nations, not 

 to place their sole dependence on a single crop. Unhappy Ireland, 

 and the north of Scotland, are mournful examples of this mistake." 



