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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 



[ September 12, 1872. 



another form of special indusia is shown in the figure of 

 Fadyenia prolifera. In this case it is attached on one side, 

 and thus becomes a reniform sub-oblong indusium, or by a 

 still further attachment along one side it becomes linear, as 

 shown in the illustration of Neottopteris nidus, whilst in some 

 instances it becomes cup-like (calycif orrn) , as shown in the 

 .figure of Cyathea elegans. Another form of indusia is that 

 called the accessory indusia, as an example of which I may 

 instance Balantium Culcita. In this case the margin of the 

 frond becomes changed, assumes the form of and joins the true 

 indusia, and thus becomes a somewhat two-lipped cup. The 

 last form of indusia to which I shall draw the attention of 

 my readers is called the universal indusia. This consists 

 simply of the contracted fertile frond, the margins of which 

 are rolled inwards, and thus enclose and protect the whole of 

 the sori, a good example of which may be found in the Parsley 

 Fern, Allosorus crispus. — Expef.to Ckede. 



THE POTATO DISEASE. 



" Thus I, Colin Clout, 

 As I go about, 

 And up and down I wait, 

 I hear the people talk." 



A great deal has been said, in exaggeration, about the Potato 

 disease, let alone all those letters in the Times, so wonderfully 

 made, and I must say rather old in ideas ; for have not those 

 electrical shocks, the wide planting and all the silicates, ap- 

 peared years ago in these very pages ? Well, better late than 

 never : there is a great deal of truth in them if one is practical 

 enough to sift it from the nonsense written. 



For my own part I am sorry to say exaggeration will apply 

 to me with a vengeance, for never since the disease first ap- 

 peared in 1845 has it affected my crops so direly, and this in 

 opposite soils and different counties. I have it in Oxfordshire, 

 on the stonebrash of Stonesfield ; at Woodstock, on a made 

 dark stony loam, with glass bottles, potsherds, oyster-shells, 

 and bones galore, shot down as a sub-layer centuries ago, and 

 which for the last twenty-five years I have never allowed to 

 rest, but kept moving and disintegrating by annual trenchings, 

 and the soil otherwise recruited with dry earth-closet soil, 

 and house sewage, woody fibre, and old thatch ; so that way of 

 working is nothing new, but it is a very good and proper way 

 of going to work. Mr. Moule is quite right so far, and very 

 lucky in his Potatoes having escaped the murrain ; but I 

 should be sorry to pin my faith on the power of any " phospho- 

 silieate manure" to eradicate the disease. At Bedfont, in 

 Middlesex, I rent some land — a sandy loam on gravel, very 

 poor — into which I had well-trenched raw strawy London 

 stable-manure last autumn, and got the soil limed at the rate 

 of seventy bushels per acre just before Potato-planting this 

 spring; here the tubers are rotted worse than with me in 

 Oxfordshire. I am staying at Brighton, and took a drive on 

 the Lewes Road the other day, and here Mr. Moule's silicate 

 system can be seen in all its glory, or rather a type of it, for 

 in a field sloping down to the road in the vicinity of the bar- 

 racks — a gravelly soil on the chalk — are Potatoes in as flourish- 

 ing a condition as can be, haulm ripening-off healthily, and I 

 should think scarcely a diseased tuber to be found, and where 

 town refuse, broken bottles, and crocks crop-out most palpably. 

 Now, I had conscientiously read my Times and Mr. Moule's 

 letter merely a few hours before I saw the above pleasant sight, 

 and if my own sad case had not anteriorly presented itself, I 

 should have been ready to have sworn that Mr. Moule had hit 

 the disease on its head most satisfactorily. I do not believe 

 any of us can do that, but it is no reason why we should not 

 all do as Mr. Moule is doing practically, and to the best of our 

 ability. Another instance : I was walking up from the sea 

 towards the Wick, and in a corner garden where, no doubt, 

 refuse had been shot, an old man was digging up what appeared 

 to me to be Turner's Flourball Potatoes, "Snowball" they 

 call them here ; the haulm had ripened, and the tubers were 

 perfect. In another part of the garden were what I dubbed 

 some years ago in " The Cottage Gardener" "Brighton Re- 

 gents," a late sort ; they were green as grass, and without a 

 fatal spot ; the old man told me the tubers were perfect. I 

 was sorry he was called away to his dinner, or I should have 

 " been in " for a longer chat. 



However, as we have excellent Potatoes to eat, and as the 

 samples that I continually observe in the market and at the 

 shops are so free from disease, I hope that the clamour is in- 

 creased by interested persons, and that other large districts as 



well as the surrounding country of Brighton may be free from 

 the murrain. One thing must be borne in mind — Brighton in 

 its soil must be naturally a favoured district, being, as it is, a. 

 sharpish gravel on the chalk. Nevertheless, agreeably to my 

 fine poetical text, I have noticed a great difference in the green- 

 ery of Potato plots in closely adjacent neighbourhoods, through 

 a rather extensive distance in travel, which leads me to hope 

 that the late sorts may ripen off free of the disease ; and there 

 is one consolation with which I buoy myself up — viz., I have 

 frequently noticed when our early sorts get stricken, the later 

 kinds escape, particularly in our northern and more important 

 Potato districts. We shall see. Early sorts for the south,, 

 western, and midland counties are, nevertheless, those which 

 we should cultivate. 



I cannot help, from long years of battles with the Potato- 

 disease, thinking that the origin of the murrain comes from 

 the effect of the thunder and lightning, and that indescribable- 

 state of the atmosphere then predominating — a stink that can. 

 be felt sometimes ; and when accompanied, as it was this- 

 season, with continued wet and heat, "Despair" may be pla- 

 carded on those Potato plots which are just about to reach 

 maturity, at whatever time of the year such a state of things 

 may occur, unless they are at once taken up. 



Li 1845 I had a considerable breadth of the old Birmingham 

 Blues under my hands, at Stanton Lacey, near Ludlow, in 

 Shropshire. My hobby then was Potatoes, and it was my 

 pride to beat my neighbours in their cultivation. The disease- 

 came and blackened them ; a secret satisfaction was indulged 

 in I could plainly see, and it was said I had been experi- 

 menting to some purpose. I was always earlier than my neigh- 

 bours, but ere long my friends' crops became blackened also- 

 and, then they said my "tampering" was the cause. Soon 

 however, the newspapers taught them differently. I set to- 

 work and had my Potatoes taken up, salted, boiled, and 

 rammed down in old cider-barrels (previously sunk into the 

 earth), rode off to " Welch Knighton," and bought some pigs,, 

 which my neighbours called " greyhounds," and otherwise 

 smothered me with an abundance of " chaff." I never knew 

 hungry pigs do better than those did on the " pickled taters," 

 and by the time they were finished-off (about the following 

 Christmas), I sold then - carcases to Mr. Harding, grocer, of 

 Ludlow, averaging 21 score a-piece. I "chaffed" my neigh- 

 bours then. I told you all about this years ago, and I cannot 

 recommend a better plan even at the present day. 



We must suffer, however, to be fine, and my pride this year 

 of having attained to nearly the perfection that I set before 

 myself in regard to the Potato, induced me to leave my crops- 

 in the ground to " crow over them" to my friends, and all 

 other comers who chose to view them. I gained my object 

 and lost my crops. What I should have done, and what I 

 recommend all others to do, is to grow early and second early 

 ripeners, and then when the disease first appears, unhesi- 

 tatingly and carefully to lift their crops, and to place them at 

 once in the dark, in layers about a foot thick, where they 

 will ripen-off as much as they can, and almost equally well 

 as when they are left without their- foliage in the soil. T 

 have frequently tried cutting the haulm off, but then the short- 

 ened stems exude sap, and sour the soil into fermentation 

 about the tubers, which makes the remedy worse than the- 

 disease. To tread firmly on each side of the stems, and pull 

 them bodily away is the better practice ; but then the ground 

 cannot be at once sown with Turnips, or any other fleeting 

 crop, and there is much extra work in digging them up minus 

 their tops, on account of not knowing where to prick for them ; 

 and, as I said above, they will ripen almost as well in a dark 

 place, minus their foliage, as in the soil where they grew. 

 Agreed, they cannot be so good one way or the other from the 

 premature loss of the foliage, but then one does derive all the 

 advantages which are to be obtained. If they will not boil 

 mealy, mash them; and to those who can in addition have a 

 little dripping, or butter, or cream, it would be well under the 

 circumstances, or for a housewife to pop them into the pot 

 with her bit of bacon and Cabbage. I do not think a hungry 

 family would quarrel with her for that matter, or care much 

 about the mealiness ; at any rate, too fastidious people could 

 get the best use made of them for the pigs as above. 



With regard to seed for another season, these unripened. 

 tubers are sufficiently matured ; in fact, I prefer an unripened 

 tuber for seed, and always ohoose the medium-sized sets, as so- 

 considered, in preference to the large and best-ripened tubers ; 

 and from the day that I take them up, I keep them in single- 

 layers on shelves or boards, or in any other dry place, in twi- 



