298 [Assembly 



slow to believe him, but now they are convinced. One of them, 

 my good neighbor Btnjarain M. Price, thus writes to me about it : — 



August, 1852. 



A. C. Houghton, Esq. 



Dear Sir — In answer to 3;our late enquiries respecting my po- 

 tato crop of 1850, in connection with the lot, I will state for your 

 information, that I had a patch of about three acres of light loamy 

 soil. I commenced digging them in the fore part of September, 

 on Friday, aiul put about forty bushels in a dry place, and, on 

 the Tuesd;^y fi-llowing I overhauled them, and found I had lost 

 thirty buijluKs of the forty. I then followed your directions — I 

 pulled up all tliG vines on the balance of the field, and cleaned 

 the ground of all weeds &;c., and so left the potatoes in the ground 

 for some three weeks ; I then dug them up and put them in a dry 

 cellar, something over two hundred bushels of them. A large 

 part of them remained in the cellar until the next spring. I do 

 not thiuK that after this last digging I lost two bushels out of the 

 two hundred. I sold ihem mostly for one dollar a bushel. I 

 have no doubt that if they had all been dug at the time of my 

 •first digging, and put in a heap, I should have lost them all. 



Respectfully yours, 



EEN'JAMIN M. PRICE. 



ColoDol Ilougliton V as arikcd what he believed to be the cause 

 of the disease, and then he exhibited potatoes and their stalks 

 just taken np on his farm. The stalks were green, leaves brown, 

 withered, and full of holes resembling lace. At intervals along 

 the stalk were dark colored elongated spots. Colonel Houghton 

 had first observed on his hand (when pulling the diseased stalks) 

 a minute speck, not distinguishable as a live being by the naked 

 eye. He called his daughter to look at it. Siie could not distin- 

 guish it. lie then gave her a microscope of high power, and she 

 exclaimed — what a beautiful pink worm. This mite leaped, as 

 some other mites do, with great activity. Colonel Houghton has 

 since that framd this miie invariably in diseased stalks, and. no- 

 where else. A minute egg precedes the mite. To the question 

 what is your reason for leaving the potatoes so long in the ground 

 after the tops are pulled 7 He replied — that he supposed that 

 by removing the tops and all the weeds the communication to the 



