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growth, were severely cut by the frost right through the 
middle of the plot, in a direction east and west, while both 
sides of the piece were entirely untouched. The total 
breadth of the ground planted was not more than twenty 
yards, and it was situated in an open field of four acres. 
This frost I attribute to an electric discharge, and obser- 
vation of the neighbourhood shews that it must have come 
from the east. Situated at Thornes, more than a mile 
to the south of my field, is a field on the side of a hill 
having a sharp declivity to the east. This field contained 
about three acres of potatoes, on the 30th June, which were 
cut down across their entire breadth, the sides being left 
as in my own case. Between the two fields is a valley 
containing many gardens occupied by the same crop, but 
in no one of them could I discover or hear of any injured 
potatoes. I subsequently inquired of a dealer in potatoes 
who has been for many years in the habit of buying the 
crop on the ground as it was growing, whether he ever knew 
part of a field to be injured by anything while the rest was 
untouched. He informed me that he had often known crops 
of early potatoes to be cut by the frost in places, while 
all the rest of a field was quite uninjured. Sometimes a 
corner of a plot was taken and the rest left ; at other times 
a certain piece at the side, or in the middle, but in no case 
could he connect either injury or preservation with trees, 
hedgerows, or other causes, in fact, said he, " we can't 
account for it, we know nought about it." 
Another fact was communicated to me by an old man, 
a market gardener, who had been for many years in the 
habit of travelling by night with his produce from Wakefield 
to Bradford. He wished to explain to me the origin of the 
potato disease, and hence his account : — " One summer 
night, about seven years since, when the disease was so 
bad, I was going to Bradford, and when I got a few miles 
