416 Failure of the Potato Crop in Scotland. 



laid down, whether the annual and other flowers are kept as 

 distinctly apart as they ought to be. 



We are most happy to observe that the common laurels and 

 hollies, which have been distributed through the arboretum in the 

 Chiswick Garden, and which give it such a sameness and com- 

 monplace character throughout, are being removed. We trust 

 that in a short time every thing else will be excluded from it that 

 is not strictly and scientifically a part of it, and that, instead of 

 dug clumps, the entire surface of the arboretum (pond included) 

 will be covered with turf. The keeping of this turf might be 

 let by the season to one man, so as to save the Society some ex- 

 pense ; and some disfigurement would be saved to the garden, if 

 one or two women were employed for the season to pick oif the 

 caterpillars, and to catch moths, butterflies, and other insects, 

 before they laid their eggs. The late Mr. Wilmot of Lewisham 

 kept his fruit trees perfectly free from insects of every descrip- 

 tion, by means of one woman to (if we recollect right) every 

 ten acres of trees. The rosaceous plants, including the Pomaceae, 

 in the Chiswick Garden, as in most of the nurseries about Lon- 

 don, this season have suffered more than usual injury from cater- 

 pillars; which injury might have been greatly alleviated had these 

 insects been removed in time. 



Art. IV. On the Failure of the Potato Crop in the North of Scot- 

 land. By Mr. James Munro. 



Among the various causes assigned for the recent failures of 

 the potato crop, the most plausible have always appeared to be 

 those which trace these failures to the sets. In this part of the 

 country, no change has taken place in the mode of keeping po- 

 tatoes through the winter, in preparing them for planting in the 

 spring, or in preparing the soil or manure for receiving them. 

 The soil and the climate are also the same. If, then, no change 

 have taken place in the mode of treating the potato, in the soil, 

 or in the climate, the cause must be owing to something in the 

 potato itself. This appears highly probable from the following- 

 circumstances : — 



It is customary for farmers, in this part of the country, to let 

 the land to townspeople, at 10/. per acre; the tenants providing 

 their own sets, and placing them in the furrow after the plough. 

 The farmer finds manure, and performs all the necessary labour 

 throughout the season : he ploughs up the crop, which is gathered 

 and put into sacks by the tenant, and the farmer completes his 

 part of the contract by carting these sacks home. Now, in a 

 field planted in this manner, with sets furnished by above a dozen 

 different persons, I have seen one drill fail from end to end, while 



