. No. 103. 1 303 



i another year, if not killed by the winter 1 W they aj-e now here 

 for the first time, and the potato tops a.re their favorite food, where 



\ did they come from 1 and would they not, most likely, have been 

 known and heard from 7 



A few years since the disease of horses, known as the slavers, 

 was suddenly introduced and became general, and was brought on 

 i in some instances, even in winter, by the horse eating second cress 

 ' or rowen hay. At the west, it aflected the hogs, and even geese; 

 ' almost every man had his cause for it, via : Indiiin tobacco, lo- 

 . belia, &:c., &c., plants always known to grow. S<jme pastures 

 i would produce the difficulty, others not. At the west, some 

 ! charged it to clover! It has entirely disappeared. My opinion 

 : then and now is, that it was produced by an insect, which affect- 

 ed the salivary glands. At one period of several years it was 

 { quite an evil. It first appeared, suddenly, about 1802 or 1803. 

 ! I will make further inquiry respecting the bug, and by a note in 

 the paper endeavor to obtain information from other sections, and 

 will give the result. 



I hope your Club will be able to gain more general information 

 respecting it, viz: whether this is its first appearance on any 

 stage. Our potato crop will be very small in this vicinity, not 

 enough to supply the inhabitants. From May to the last of July 

 we had little or no rain, and we sniiered from this drought very 

 much. We then had a fine rain ; I have seen many hilJs pulled, 

 and the potatoes like musket balls in size. Our hay crop is light, 

 fay not two-thirds of one. Oats light crop, but well seeded. 

 Corn crop is quite light. . Fruit crop short and not of usual size. 

 ^ Our pastmes are dried up, and cannot rec/)ver this season ; little 

 or no second crop of grass. 



I am, sir, respectfully yours, 



RICHARD BACON. 

 Henry Mkigs. Esq., Sec'y of the Farmers' Club, N. Y. 



Mr. Van Wyck observed that in the earlier stages of the potato 

 rot, when everybody, learned and unlearned, scientific and prac- 

 tical, were busy in collecting facts that bore any relation to the 

 disease, and spreading them before the public to aid in finding 



