236 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ September 20, 1877. 



and here the fruit, which was partly gathered, was of very 

 high quality. In the front of these houses there was another 

 flower garden, which was well done and euch as Mr. Doe had 

 good reason to be proud of. I was informed that the number 

 of plants required for the flower gardens, ribbon lines in the 

 kitchen garden, and the decoration of the various lodges on 

 the estates, was upwards of 45,000. 



We now leave the kitchen gardens and just peep into the 

 usual slip or enclosure at the outside. Here were other useful 

 houses, chiefly employed for Melons and Cucumbers. Of the 

 latter Tender-and-True was very good, but I could not see 

 that it was much in advance of the old Telegraph. In cold 

 pits there was a multitude of Primulas, Cinerarias, Mignonette, 

 Sweet-scented Verbenas, and thousands of other useful plants 

 in their season of bloom. Mr. Doe has scarcely been at Rufford 

 a year, but considering the amount of his labour these exten- 

 sive grounds were in excellent keeping. — Q. R. 



THE POTATO CROP. 



Spring and early summer cold and wet, the frosts in not a 

 few instances cutting-off to the ground the tender haulm of 

 the early crops. Oars, however, from not being above ground 

 escaped. Though late, never, perhaps, was the Potato crop 

 looking so well aB this season. The haulm though strong was 

 remarkably sturdy, lacking the rankness prognosticating disease. 

 During the great promise of the Potato crop a bill passed 

 the Legislature, an order in Council followed, with the con- 

 comitant notice papers posted in conspicuous places to prevent 

 the introduction and spread of the American Potato bug or 

 Colorado beetle, a very pretty insect judging from the illus- 

 tration. I confess to having seen nothing in the figured 

 oreature, nor in the accounts given of it, to cause fear of its 

 making any great havoc of the Potato crop in this country 

 should we be so unfortunate as to receive a visitation of this 

 kind from across the Atlantic. Our brethren in America will 

 assuredly exterminate this obstacle to their progress, as they 

 have done or are doing with the buffalo and Red Indian. 



The Colorado beetle, forsooth, eat up the Potato orop of 

 the English-speaking race ! It is well, perhaps, to be armed 

 against a threatened invasion, than which, perhaps, none are 

 better prepared. Not a Colorado beetle or any other bug, not 

 omitting a " bug-bear," which is often proved by invasion 

 panics, can maintain a footing upon our treasured soil. Our 

 feathered friends would make speedy work of the hated 

 intruder, and our climate annihilate the remnants. 



We beat the air in the vain endeavour to catch a feather, 

 all the while unable to see a real evil, one we have toleratea 

 in our midst for more than thirty years without an effort 

 beiDg made at riddance. Our learned societies have done 

 nothing, our Legislature less. Private enterprise has shown 

 at last the resting-spore of the Potato fungus, but notwith- 

 standing all our knowledge of the parasite one of the most 

 important of our food products is literally rotting before our 

 eyes. The tops of the Potatoes are a spotted, blackened, 

 leafless mass ; from beneath the soil is emitted a nauseating 

 smell, and nothing is done to stay the plague, which means a 

 dear loaf if not calamity as disastrous as the Potato famine 

 of 1845 and 1846 decimating the sister isle, and it may be 

 this time: both. Nothing so certain, as when the Saxon finds 

 his industry will bring him but half a loaf, 6very'sacrifice that 

 can be made will be made to make it a full one where the 

 means for doing so exist. 



There is little reliance to be placed upon private effort in 

 taking the needful precautions to avoid a national oalamity. 

 This is well understood in respect of the sanitary precautions 

 requisite for securing the greatest possible freedom from 

 disease in towns. Proper drainage, removal of nuisances, 

 properly constructed dwellings, are insisted on as conducive 

 to the health and well-beiDg of the general community, and 

 yet no one cares anything further about the loss of half or 

 more of a staple article of food-producing crop than to keep 

 aloof from insisting that preventive measures be taken to 

 prevent its prevalence. The failure of the Potato crop wholly 

 or in part is a national loss, the burden of which is borne 

 in chief by the humbler classes. It may be urged that we 

 know nothing for certain respecting the Potato murrain, 

 therefore for the Legislature to interfere would be ini- 

 quitous intermeddling with individual effort. Many do not 

 believe in vaccination as a preventive of small pox, and 

 not a few agriculturists insist on there being some cattle 

 slaughtered that are not affected with rinderpest, or would 



have survived were they let live. It is not only difficult but 

 absolutely impossible to satisfy everyone, but in case of a 

 national calamity, as that of disease decimating the subject 

 or diminishing its food products, the interference of the 

 Legislature is clearly necessary to prevent by known pre- 

 ventives the loss of one as well any other food product. In 

 brief, the Legislature interferes in so many ways direotly and 

 indirectly with the liberty of the subject to abuse or injure 

 himself that no apology is needed for its interference with 

 horticulturists and agriculturists in the cultivation of Potatoes. 

 Experiments should be instituted at the public expense with a 

 view to finding a compound in which coated or immersed the 

 sets infected with disease would be destroyed along with its 

 parasite, thus preventing the planting of infected tubers. 

 This would at least rid us of one form of the disease — viz., 

 curl, one result of planting infected tubers, if not, indeed, it be 

 not the means by which the spores of the fungus are repro- 

 duced, and carried by every breeze over a wide traot of 

 country, waiting only for the atmosphere to produce a con- 

 dition of the Potato foliage favourable to their development. 

 If at this time (which is generally at the close of June with 

 early crops, and a month later with winter supply crops, that 

 the plants infected with curl begin to collapse), a dressing of 

 the antidote experiment may determine as most fatal to the 

 spores of the fungus, were applied, the Potato crop might be 

 saved or the ravagfs of the fungus considerably mitigated. 

 Then, when the disease had UDtnistakeably commenced its 

 attack upon the haulm, and was descending or had descended 

 to the tubers, there being no question as to the prevalence of 

 murrain in the field or plot, tbe owner should be notified by a 

 public functionary to have the haulm of the Potatoes pulled- 

 up, and as pulled burnt. 



In lilting the tubers it should be made imperative to sepa- 

 rate the diseased from the undiseased tubers, Dot allowing the 

 diseased to lie upon the ground, but be cleared off as promptly 

 as the sound Potatoes ; it being insisted on that no one shall 

 offer for sale or sell any diseased tubera so far as is discernible by 

 the naked eye, which shall apply to those sold for food, whilst 

 those sold for seed must have been disinfected before delivery. 

 Fine, and it may be imprisonment, would be necessary to 

 enforce the regulations that might be suggested by a Royal 

 commission and be made law by the Legislature. Many will, 

 of course, be adverse to interference in such matters by the 

 Legislature, but most will agree in tbe importunity of the 

 subject. The imperfection of our knowledge of the fungus is 

 no excuse for our allowing the half or more of a valuable food 

 product to be wasted by neglecting to enforce those preventives 

 experiment has proved desirable. 



The Potato crop promises to be one of the worst as regards 

 disease we have experienced for many years. The late wet 

 weather has had a most prejudicial effect upon the field crops 

 — the haulm is fast becoming leafless, their stems blackened, 

 whilst tbe effluvia emitted is convincing, if proof were needed, 

 that the fell destroyer is at work upon the tubers. 



In the garden the early crops were good but late. Not a 

 diseased tuber was found in the Veitch's and Myatt's Ashleafs, 

 they being good in crop and excellent in quality. Lapstone, 

 very susceptible of disease, was sound up to the third week 

 in August, when a few diseased tubers were lifted, after which 

 the disease spread with amazing rapidity. 'Within a week 

 fully two-thirds of the tubers of Snowflake were infected with 

 disease, and scarce a sound one to be found of Early Market, 

 which, though a good-quality Potato and producing a quantity 

 of tubers, is oft too small in size. It will not be grown again. 

 Rector of Woodstook is in the same plight as Snowflake. 

 Bountiful, not many bad; and Early Vermont nothing to 

 complain of, though the haulm of both are gone. Of Viotoria 

 scarce a sound tuber is to be found ; and though the RegentB 

 are not as yet much infested, they are losing the leaves and 

 the stalks are badly blaokened. Not since the years 1845 and 

 1846 have I seen or heard of so bad an infeotion. I have 

 omitted mention of many kinds, which though fancy kinds 

 have scarce a place for consumption, they being of little value 

 beyond swelling the lists, gaining no favour except in the raw 

 state at exhibitions — fine to look at — great bulky fellows that 

 have no admirers by consumers. If there is anything that 

 deserves to be cilled a sham it is Potato exhibitions, outward 

 appearance and Bize being the ohiof points of a show kind, 

 whereas the tuber's value is dependant upon its cropping and 

 quality. In the fields there is great and general prevalence of 

 disease, the appearance is such as to leave little doubt of tbe 

 crops beiDg as disastrously affected as the garden crops. 



