74. The Potatoe Plague. 
juice is able properly to digest. The imperfectly converted 
aliment produces various kinds of inconvenience, and, if 
persevered in, derangement of the whole system, though the 
food itself in moderation may be perfectly wholesome. 
Tt would be doirg injustice to the theory before stated, if 
it were sent forth to the public without a brief notice of 
some of the objections which at once occur to those conver- 
sant with the subject. The first that I shall allude to is, 
that the management of seed potatoes during winter, the 
mode of planting, and more especially the nature of the 
season after planting, exercise a very decided influence in 
modifying or increasing the potatoe failure; which, at first 
sight, seems hardly reconcilable with the supposition that 
such failure is dependent on the degree of maturity of the 
seed potatoes when harvested. I at once admit that if seed 
potatoes are kept in too large a heap and allowed to fer- 
ment, or if kept so warm as to induce excessive growth 
during winter, or in any other way are so treated as to 
weaken their vitality, the sets will, many of them, fail, and 
others make weak and unhealthy shoots, very much resem- 
bling, and possibly identical with, curl. It must be borne in 
mind, however, that though I consider over-ripening of the 
seed to be the ordinary cause ‘of curl, I by no means assert 
that it is the only one.~ Iam well aware that deficient man- 
agement will, especially if followed by long drought, produce 
failing crops, and whether such failure be due to curl or nof, 
I can offer no opinion; but the great puzzle to potatoe 
growers has been that, with the most careful management, 
failures continually occur, and these failures may, I think, be 
traced to ripe sets. That the influence of season is great 
I should be the last man to deny, as in two instances where 
my potatoe crops were affected with curl, (distinctly traceable 
to having used ripe sets,) they continued to get worse so long 
as the drought lasted, but on the ‘occurrence of heavy rains 
