The Potatoe Plague. 91 
evil, are erroneous,~~— and should they prove of no value, 
J am quite ready to give them up and try again. 
A. B. Allen, Editor of the American Agriculturalist thus 
sums up, in a few words, the whole subject. The disease is 
probably a fungus. The best remedics are salt, lime and 
- charcoal. We recommend procuring new seedlings, and be 
very careful not to let them get mixed with old ones. Plant 
next spring without other manures than plaster, salt, lime, 
charcoal or ashes. A good sod, with the addition of the 
other materials, will be sufficiently rich to raise a large crop; 
and, depend upon it, if the seed be of a good variety, and it 
escapes the rot, the crop will be sweet, mealy, and highly 
nutritious — the best for animals as well as for man. 
As the disease is more generally attributed to the attacks 
of fungi than to any other cause, a few remarks on the cause 
of fungr, will not be inappropriate to this inquiry, and I give 
them place here. A writer in the Farmers’ Cabinet says — 
Close observation will show, that all plants of the fungi 
tribe grow where there is a deficiency of alkalies. We never 
see mushrooms, toadstools, or any thing of the kind, grow on 
or near a heap of ashes or lime. But we almost invaribly 
see them growing on or near a pile of stable dung, or any 
thing yielding a large proportion of carbonic acid. The cause 
of this is easily demonstrated by chemistry. A chemical 
analysis of plants of the fungi tribe, will show that they con- 
tain an extremely small proportion of alkali, far smaller than 
any other class of vegetables. The fact is of the highest um- 
portance to farmers; by its aid they can always tell when 
their soils need alkaline substances to make them more pro- 
ductive, without going to the trouble and expense of a chemi- 
eal analysis of the soil for that purpose. Upon whatever 
spot of ground the fungi make their appearance, there is a 
want of alkali, and no time should be lost in supplying it, if 
we would raise profitable crops; for such crops as wheat, 
