31 Q [Assembly 



1852 he tried again, and not having enough to plant of his own 

 potatoes, he bought some which were more or less affected with 

 the rot, and dried them like the rest. He kept them a month in 

 a very warm room. He cut them into quarters and halves, ac- 

 cording to their sizes, and then kept them hot for eight days 

 more. The heat was, by inadvertence, raised so high that he 

 thought he had destroyed the vitality of the germs. However^ 

 he planted them, and, contrary to his expectation, they all grew 

 rapidly, and so vigorously that he had young potatoes from them 

 three weeks sooner than common. Many yielded nine for one, 

 and although the neighboring fields were all attacked by the dis- 

 ease, there was not a single trace of if on any of his ^ either plant's 

 or tuber. 



The result of three years' experiment led Mr. Bollman to en- 

 quire after like results among farmers. He found two. One of 

 them, Mr. Losowski, of the canton of Sebege, in the government 

 of Witepsk, had dried his seed potatoes for years past, and had 

 no rot. He learned this by mere accident. Pulling up potato 

 stalks one day, he put one potato into his pocket. When he got 

 home he threw it in a corner near a stove, where it remained till 

 the ensuing spring all wrinkled and perfectly dry. He had the 

 curiosity to plant it, and it grew well and yielded a quantity of 

 fine, perfectly sound potatoes. After this Mr. Losowski dried all 

 his seed potatoes, and always had a perfectly healthy crop. 



The second experiment was by Mr. Wasilewski, a land owner 

 in the government of Mohilew, He had stored some potatoes in 

 his smoke house, where he cured his hams, in 1852. Not having 

 enough to plant of his common stock, he planted those from the 

 smokehouse. They produced a crop superior in value, and 

 showed scarcely a trace of the ?ot, while the others were all 

 diseased. 



Prof. Bollman says it is a general practice in Russia to dry 

 artificially several of the seeds reserved for planting, such as 

 hemp, wlieat, and rye. That onions which have been long 

 smoked are sought after by farmers, and they call them the lymka, 

 that is, smoJced onions. 



