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XIV. — Report on the Results of the Competition q/" 1874 for the 
Society's Prizes for Potatoes that should be free from Disease for 
three years in succession. By William Cakruthees, F.R.S., 
Consulting Botanist to the Society. 
The ignorance prevailing in regard to the true nature of the 
plague which for thirty years has been so destructive to our 
potato crop was singularly manifested to the Judges who 
undertook the task of adjudicating the prize offered by Lord 
Cathcart in the autumn of 1872, for the best essay on 'The 
Potato Disease and its Prevention.' The ninety-four competing 
essays were written, with very few exceptions, by practical men 
— growers of potatoes — but only a small proportion showed any 
acquaintance on the part of the authors with the agent which 
destroyed the potato. Unable to advise the bestowal of the 
prize on any of the competitors, the Judges, considering the 
importance of the subject, the renewed attention given to it, 
and the defects in our knowledge of the parasite causing the 
disease, resolved to recommend to the Royal Agricultural Society 
to take the matter up as a subject of investigation, in the 
hope that some genuine addition to knowledge might be made, 
and some practical hints for the future guidance of cultivators 
might be secured. 
The Society, approving of this recommendation, resolved to 
promote investigations as to the more strictly scientific aspect 
of the subject. They entered into correspondence with Professor 
De Bary, whose important additions to the knowledge and his- 
tory of the potato fungus, and whose elaborate memoir of the 
group to which it belongs, pointed him out as the fittest botanist 
to undertake this part of the work. Professor de Bary has 
cordially entered into the Society's plans ; and has now for some 
time been carrying on experiments and observations with the 
view of determining those points in the history of the parasitic 
fungus which are yet unknown. When his Work is completed 
the result will be published in the Society's Journal. 
The Society further resolved to look at the subject in its prac- 
tical bearings on the agriculturist, and endeavour to gain facts 
from the past experience of potato-growers, and from experi- 
ments to be instituted, which might concur with the more 
purely scientific investigations to a definite apprehension of the 
potato-disease in all its bearings. A series of questions were 
accordingly addressed to extensive potato-growers throughout the 
United Kingdom ; the answers have been digested by Mr. Jen-i 
kins, and published in his Report on the subject in the last 
volume of the Society's Journal (pp. 475-514). It is there 
