No. 133-1 . 321 



The celebrated Irish potato commission, which was appointed 

 bj the late Sir Robert Peel, is only a monument of the impotence 

 of scientific research ; it ended in a farce and an abortion. We 

 have tried all, and thought we staveU off the disease sometimes; 

 the anti-septic power of charcoal availed us nothing. This shows 

 ui that there must be a difhculty in imagining how a merely am- 

 raonical state of the atmosphere could in any way effect potatoes 

 immersed in dry charcoal ! We have imitated the conditions in 

 which the potato escaped without success. In the fall of 1851, 

 our potato plants were all free from even the appearance of taint, 

 but after the potatoes were dug, carefully sorted, dried and put 

 away, they were attacked by the rot, and before Christmas five- 

 sixths of them went off. 



Of the bean disease we know even less than the potato. It is 

 a plant most subject to climatic influences. 



PRIZE FOR AN ARTIFICIAL MANURE 



The Royal Society of England and Wales has agreed to offer 

 a premium of one thousand pounds and their gold medal, for one 

 equivalent to guano. 



By the documents before the House of commons, the guano de- 

 posits are estimated at twenty-seven millions, twenty-tour thou- 

 sand four hundred and ninety-three tons. 



Various seeds put up in layers covered with soil in a moist 

 state — in boxes well packed so that none can move — are im- 

 ported from America into Scotland, in a better condition than, in 

 any other way. The boxes of deal 3-4 inch thick and about 14 

 inches diameter. The seeds so brought grew freely while those 

 in paper, cloth, &c., were found slow in growing and few of 

 them. 



Fowler of Bristol has invented a draining plow which would 

 have formed the most remarkable feature in the agricultural de- 

 partment of the great exhibitirn— but for the American reaper. 

 Surprise takes hold of all who behold two horses at work by the 

 side of a field on a capstan, which by an invisible wire rope, 

 draws towards itself a low frame work, leaving but the traces of 



[Assembly No. 133.1 21 



