328 jAssKMBL-sr 



The secretary read from the 



London Farmer's Magarine for September, 1852. 



POTATO DISEASE. 

 The earl of Malmesbury, her majesty's principal secretary of 

 state for the foreign department, transmitted to the council, 

 through Mr. Addington, a dispatch from the consul general at 

 Warsaw, in Poland. 



Extracts. — Poland has comparatively suffered but little from 

 the potato malady ; but it is her important crop, and she is 

 attentive to it. The malady is now ascribed to the presence of 

 too much free ammonia in the lands in which the potatoes are 

 planted, and to counteract it fixed alkalies.* This theory appears 

 so stroDgly to bear out the view taken at the very beginning of 

 the epidemic, as reported in my consular letter of October 16, 

 1846, that I am induced to make this statement to your lordship. 

 Dr. Voget, of Heinsberg, in the district of Aix la Chapelle, re- 

 commends the simplest method of decomposing it, wherever it 

 js, whether produced in the soil or the manures, to use crude 

 gypsum as a top dressing ; or to irrigate the ground with very 

 strongly diluted muriatic or sulphuric acid, in the same way as 

 liquid manures are applied, or before carrying out the manures 

 to mix it with gypsum, ashes, or acids. 



GUSTAVUS DU PLAT, Co7isul General. 



OSIER WILLOW. 

 Recent inquiries have been made at the Institute for information 

 relative to this valuable article, with a view to cultivating it for 

 our own market, which has hitherto been, and is now, shipped 

 from Europe. 



Lindley, in his " Vegetable Kingdom" says,'that of the salicacea, 

 or Willowworts, are nations of the same localities as the British 

 iamilie, but they grow still further north than the birches. The 

 most northern woody plants that are known, are the willows — 

 salix arctica and polaris. The order is found sparingly in Bar- 

 bary, and there is a species of willow even in Senegal. 



* Fotash and soda are called fixed alkaliep, snd ammtcia the volatile. Potasbfrom the 

 aobM of almost all vegetablet. Soda abonsda in the nioeral kingdooi, iD •«» lalt aod ashes 

 ^ BMrise pkuato, and alto &aUT« in tJb« ooil* ^f ^gTPt, 67rm, and India. • 



