All agree that the nitrogenous compounds in the tuber are affected 
first, and toa peculiar state of these constituents, Liebig and others F 
have referred the origin of the disease. The starch is attacked last, and 4 
often remains uninjured when the walls of the cellular tissue that en- 
close its globules are nearly destroyed. From potatoes which have 
282 Miscellaneous Intelligence. | 
become even offensive in their smell, perfectly good starch has been 
extracted. ‘The manufacture of starch becomes of great impo ortance 
in the economical disposition of the diseased potato. - 
The report of the Groningen commission ascribes the disease to ie 
wetness and sudden changes of the two last years. M. Payen thinks 
that excessive moisture has predisposed the potato to yield to the attacks 
of fungi. Mr. Phillips of London has published a pamphlet in which 
he ascribes the whole thing to the same cause. These are only a few 
of those who advocate this view of the question. All who have ex- 
perienced much rain, assign this as the cause of disease, not knowing 
that it has been quite as bad on dry soils and where there has been little &h 
rain. In all the west of Scotland the summer of 1845 was considered re 
rather a dry one, and in Islay, one of the Western Islands on the Scotch i) 
coast, the streams had not been so low for many years. The potatoes . 
were as much affected in this part of Scotland as on the east coast 
These facts seem quite decisive on the subject of wetness, for one well i 
; 
¢ 
1s Ste i tai a 
authenticated case where the disease has occurred under circumstances 
that preclude the idea of its =e caused by = sepelany the theory 
quite untenable. 
It is not so easy to decide whether atmoephiori¢ influence i is. the cause 
of the disease. - In order to arri his poin' 
extended meteorological obvanvations: are necessary, At ince sPoabe) 
fact that three or Sor counties forming the extreme northern point 
of Scotland were entirely free from it; without any essential differ- 
ence in their season from that of the other counties, so far as was known 
by ordinary observers. The overseer of Mr. Fleming of Barochan, 
in Renfrewshire, Scotland, lifted from one of his fields on the 5th of 
September last (1845) about 5 cwt. of potatoes ; these were stored in the 
house and remained perfectly sound at the date of his writing, in the mid- 
dle of winter. From the same field on the 15th of September were 
lifted 5 cwt. more of the same potatoes. These after being in the house 
two days, were tainted and decaying, as was the case before the end of 
September with all that were left in the field. In this instance the 
crisis in the change from the healthy to the diseased tuber took place 
between the 5th and 15th of September. If the disease had shown it- 
Self at this time simultaneously in every part of that district, this fact 
_ Would go far to show that it was caused by some atmospheric influence 5 
ee i some ee 
oat 
