A 



JOURNAL ■ 



OF 



NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, CHEMISTRY, 



AND 



THE ARTS. 



SUPPLEMENT TO VOL. XXX1L 



ARTICLE I. 



Observations on the Disease in the Potato^ generally called 

 the Curl; pointing out the most probable Method of pre- 

 venting it ; with an Account of the Results of a few 

 Experiments made on the Subject. By Mr. Thomas 

 Dickson, Leith Walk, Edinburgh*. 



il HIS disease, so far as I can learn, first began to be Date of the 

 alarming (o the growers of the potato about thirty-five or curl ln P ota " 

 forty years ago. Since that time, it has continued to en- 

 gage the attention of many eminent agriculturists and gar- 

 deners. 



Various opinions have at different times been advanced Opinions re- 

 as to its cause. Some were of opinion, that the disease cause" 6 

 was caused by the tubers used for seed-stock not having 

 been sufficiently ripened : — others thought, that they had 

 been frost-bitten, in the course of the preceding winter: — 

 some ascribed the evil to the effects of blights attacking the 

 plants in coming through the ground ; — others to the at- 

 tacks of certain minute insects : — lastly, the exhausted 

 state of the soil was blamed for the disease. But no one Real cause. 

 seems to have hit upon the real cause, until the honour- 

 able Baron Hepburn of Smeaton, in East Lothian, one of 



# Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, vol. I, 

 p. 49. 



Vol. XXXII. Supplement. Z the 



