On the Cultivated Potato. 
211 
on it at 9 inches apart ; aim at 200 or 300 bushels an acre. In 
Scotland, Cornwall, Cheshire, Lancashire, and near London two 
crops have been taken ; very early crops having been obtained 
by the careful manipulation of sprouted sets. The President 
of the Board, Sir John Sinclair, the originator of the unrivalled 
statistical account of Scotland, a voluminous writer, and truly 
a public soul, was busily engaged, both pen and voice, during 
the potato failure of this disastrous year of 1795. The failure 
of the crop was disastrous.* Peaty-stuff is mentioned as useful 
in keeping dry land damp and strong land open ; straw also as 
useful in keeping strong land open : 1 myself had some evidence 
as to a fine crop grown in what was thought hopeless, brick- 
like clods. Lime was supposed to induce curl and canker. 
The Rev. Mr. Campbell instituted in 1790 some suggestive 
experiments in Argyleshire, the results were these — productive- 
ness is not dependent on the size of the sets, but on their 
having that perfect number of stem-growths which the soil they 
feed on can furnish : the roots from plants at 12 inches are 
much larger than those at 6 inches apart. The importance of 
the leaf-haulm is not duly considered. Now to me the fol- 
lowing observation appears highly important ; the roots of the 
plant should occupy the ground as completely as possible, so 
long as they do not interfere or injure one another. The 
struggle for life, it has been observed by recent authorities, is 
usually most severe between individuals of the same species. 
I find in Rees that there is a reference to the " mould," or 
fungus, as associated with curl, and this if not earlier is certainly 
as early as the birth of the present century. Arthur Young's 
exhaustive annals merit careful study. Wilson, a practical 
writer, in his ' Agriculture of Renfrewshire,' mentions and 
approves the system largely adopted in the last century of pull- 
ing off the blossoms to hasten the ripening of the tubers. Robert 
Brown, farmer of Markle, in the county of Haddington, a very 
practical writer on rural affairs,t says, sets should be rather 
large than small, the stem depends on the set : and throughout, 
though there has been much controversy, whole sets appear to 
be preferred — cutting the set causing weakness. As modern 
authorities have observed, the tuber contains a store of food put 
there by Nature to help the plant, the stem, in the struggle for 
life. The history of the potato from this period down to the 
formation of the Royal Agricultural Society is a history of fre- 
quent and varied disease, and constant degeneration certainly 
running in the direction of extinction. It was observed by 
* Eees ' Cyclopaedia,' art. " Potato." 
t Edin., 1811, vol. ii. p. 78. 
