PART ITI. 
THE POTATOE PLAGUE. 
Preliminary Remarks. 
In the preceding pages I have collected important informa- 
tion on the history, cultivation, diseases and uses of the pota- 
toe. I commend that pait of the béok to the candid attention 
of the farming community, as it contains much that is new. 
The views of M. Thaer, especially, now for the first time 
republished to American readers, will claim their attention as 
being the mature experience of a distinguished cultivator, 
after years of observation into the nature of the tuber and 
the best modes of managing it. 
I now approach the great subject of this treatise with un- 
feigned diffidence. I would, in the outset, deprecate criticism, 
by the confession, that the material portions of information 
contained in these pages are not from my own knowledge, or 
the result of my individual experience. The work is com 
posed of better materials than any one farmer or scientific 
cultivator could possibly furnish, were he even the most pro- 
found and practical in the land. It is a condensation of the 
opinions of farmers and scientific men from every part of this 
country and Europe, respecting every variety of the potatoe, 
