October 9, 1884. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
327 
•great deal of blank cartridge and smoke from the little skirmishers who 
■are on the look out for testimonials and little lectureships. 
The idea has long been present to my mind to some day explain, in 
the pleasantest manner possible, how the political feeling was first evolved 
and how I was one of its innocent causes. As the opportunity has now 
presented itself, I will endeavour, without the expression of any bad or 
jealous feeling, to recount the political facts of the case. 1 will mention 
no names unpleasantly; if there are any unpleasant persons mixed up 
with the Potato business we will let them remain as possible myths. 
Being a “ free-lance,” and not having yet been purchased or disposed 
of by any “ party,” I am able not only to take very good care of myself, 
but can dispense with any attempt to please or displease anyone, from 
the loftiest professional Professor down to his pupils, the very smallest of 
the £ s. d. skirmishers. 
Politics, then, were first introduced to the Potato fungus (quite 
unwittingly, it must be acknowledged) by a lord. In the year 1873 this 
■guileless lord was sufficiently ill-advised to offer a prize of £100, under 
the auspices of the Imperial Corn-growing Society, for the best essay on 
the Potato disease. This offer was much disapproved by men of science, 
and for the first time unpleasant feelings were aroused. There were at 
the time several eminent fungologists alive in this country, and amongst 
them the noble old botanist Berkeley, who had already done far more 
than any other living man to throw light on the nature of the Potato 
disease. I need hardiy say that no single man of science in Europe (and 
the advertisements were published in France and Germany as well as 
Britain) responded to the offer ; but, on the other band, nearly a hun¬ 
dred writers, termed “ ignorant crochet-mongers ” by the opposition 
■'‘party,” were the sole competitors. All the essays were of course so 
feeble or atrociously bad that the prize was necessarily altogether with¬ 
held. By the action of withholding the grand “ prize ” a full hundred 
dismal, dissatisfied, and irritated ignorami were evolved from chaos to 
•discuss Potato politics. A reference to the horticultural, agricultural, 
and botanical journals for 187-1 will show what unparliamentary (or, 
perhaps, I should say parliamentary) language began to be used in the 
discussion of the nature of the Potato disease and its accompanying 
fungus. 
The startling action of the Imperial Corn-growing Society in the 
came year imported further bad feeling and more harsh words into the 
discussion of the nature of the Potato disease, for in that year the 
Society offered three prizes of £100 each for Potatoes that would resist 
disease for three years in succession. The Secretary of the Society 
obligingly informed the public that ” several writers ” of the feeble and 
scandalously ignorant essays had positively averred that “ the only way 
to prevent the disease was to plant certain sorts.” It is to be hoped that 
the writers had no pecuniary interest in these “ sorts.” However, the 
feeble and bad essay writers were to be appeased in some way, so the 
three prizes of £100 each were duly advertised. Some persons said that 
this action was little better than offering premiums for quackery, feeble¬ 
mindedness, and impudence, and the violent letters that were published 
in the papers became more marked, intensified, and political than before. 
The “ crochet-mongers ” themselves remained exceedingly wild, for these 
feeble fanatics were requested to forward no less than a ton each of 
" disease-proof” Potatoes for trial in different parts of the three kingdoms. 
The competition certainly turned out rather flat, for only 6 tons of 
Potatoes were received by the Society, and of these 3 tons belonged to 
one competitor, so there were really only four competitors for the three 
prizes. It is hardly necessary to inform the members of a society like 
the Essex Field Club that this second competition ended like the first in 
-an abortive and very irritating way. Again no awards were made, be¬ 
cause it was, of course, found that no variety of Potato would resist the 
disease in all places for even one year. Two years had now been wasted, 
together with a great deal of labour and money. The published letters 
belonging to this period of the dispute are saddening to refer to, as they 
are full of painful personalities. Some of the writers were officers of the 
Imperial Corn-growing Society and the Imperial Apple-growing Society. 
In one of these published letters the purely scientific aspect of the subject 
was clearly brought forward by a Professor, who directed attention to the 
work already done in the investigation of the nature of the Potato disease 
by Berkeley. He also exposed the futility of offering prizes to “ crochet- 
mongers ” and the proprietors of “disease-proof” Potatoes. A few 
anonymous skirmishers joined in the fray, and at the end of 1874 and 
in 1875 two writers, who signed their names, and an anonymous nobody, 
tried in a marked but abortive manner to tear Berkeley’s justly won 
honours away from him, but the Professor who defended Berkeley lashed 
out so vigorously in the pages of Nature and the Gardeners' Chnmiele, 
that he completely collapsed his opponents. The Imperial Corn-growing 
Society now began to instruct its members in print on the nature of the 
Potato fungus and what Professor De Bary of Strasbourg had done. 
These articles were marred by amusing misprints. Professor De Bary’s 
conidia were termed “ jonidia,” and the fungus, it was said, at last got 
into the Potatoe’s “ tubes.” The mystery of the “ tubes ” has never been 
solved, perhaps “ tubers ” rather than^bronchial tubes was meant. These 
misprints were of course reprinted and held up to public scorn and 
ridicule by the opposite “ party.” No English mycologist took any part 
in the dispute. For my part I was simply amused ; it was Christmas 
time, and the proceedings pleasantly reminded me of the playful exploits 
of Christmas clowns. I little thought at that time how soon and how 
cruelly I was doomed to become involved as a combatant. Although at 
this time the politics of the Potato disease had taken a dangerous form, 
the Imperial Corn-growing Society had not yet completed its work of 
confusion. Another potent ingredient had yet to be added to the 
dangerous broth in the enchanted Potato chaldron. It was determined 
to get rid of the £100 “prize” in some manner, so the judges of the 
feeble and ignorant essays “invoked foreign aid,” as an opposition 
Professor wrote and proposed that the £100 should be sent over to Pro¬ 
fessor De Bary of Strasbourg with a request that he would investigate the 
nature of the Potato fungus for, I suppose, the wooden-headed English¬ 
men. Professor De Bary, of course, quickly accepted the sudden windfall, 
and “entered,” as we are told by one of the other party, “ cordially into 
the Society’s plans.” The sending of the money to France, or rather 
Germany, for “ Napoleon the Little ” had abdicated and was then an 
ex-emperor in Britain, piled more coals on to the political fire. The 
printed personalities of the rival parties now became quite shocking; still 
no fungologists took part in the dispute, they held themselves above the 
unseemly squabble. It is to be hoped they did not envy the Professor his 
£100 windfall, but however that may be, the fungologists of Britain 
made no sign, but went quietly on with their own regular work. 
It must be explained at this point that in 1874 there was a “ missing 
link ” in the life-history of the Potato fungus. No one was quite certain 
as to its mode of hybernation through the winter. Berkeley, however, had 
long before expressed an opinion that the fungus produced resting-spores, 
and that these resting-spores hybernated all through the winter months in a 
sort of chrysalis state, and woke up again each summer to invade Potatoes. 
In fact so certain was Berkeley of this mode of hybernation that ho figured 
nearly thirty years previous to the time of which I am speaking, the 
actual resting spores of the Potato fungus from examples seen by Dr. 
Bayer and Dr. Montague. For thirty years, however, no one had seen 
these resting spores again; but as a proof that there was no mistake 
about the existence of the bodies Berkeley had in his herbarium (pre¬ 
served between slices of mica) Montagne’s oidginal examples. The 
Imperial Corn-growing Society was now very anxious that the Continental 
Professor should rediscover these resting spores, the Society had risked its 
£100, and they were naturally desirous that the Professor should look 
alive and be “ up in time,” as pugilists say. The Professor sent in some 
preliminary observations, which were reported. In this report it was 
stated that the Professor “had at last discovered the certain nids, or 
resting places of the oospores or active primary germs of the disease.” 
From that day to this no one has ventured on an explanation of what was 
meant by the Professor’s wondrous discovery of the “ nids ”—I do not 
wish to be sarcastic, but I confess I have never yet seen a genuine “nid.” 
They are not mentioned in “ Sach’s Text Book” or “ Henfrey’s 
Elementary Course.” The wooden-headed English botanists also won¬ 
dered why the Professor had termed the oospores or resting spores—active 
primary germs. Bodies that hybernate for eleven months out of twelve 
are usually considered “ passive ” rather than “ active.” Whether it is 
correct or incorrect to describe an oospore as a “ primary germ ” I will 
leave for the decision of the skirmishers who are on the look out for testi¬ 
monials. I need not say that this report was again held up to odium by 
the opposite “party,” and still more fuel added to the political fire. Up 
to this time I had taken no special interest in the Potato discussions. I 
was only a spectator, amused by the sparring and buffeting. My time had 
not yet come. 
Now, in the summer of 1875, whilst all the political wrangling was 
going on, and at the very time when Professor De Bary was at work on 
the elucidation of his mystic “ nids,” the Editor of the Journal of Horti¬ 
culture sent me examples of Potatoes badly diseased. He said the disease 
appeared to him to be somewhat different from the common form familiar 
to gardeners, and he requested me to microscope the examples forwarded. 
I did so; it was night, and the examination was made under a strong 
argand burner. As soon as I placed the plants under my quarter-inch 
objective I saw not only the ordinary fungus of the Potato disease, but 
also attached to it Berkeley’s long-lost oospores, the resting spores of 
Bayer and Montagne. 
Having many other subjects in hand, I paid no extraordinary attention 
to these resting spores. I quietly drew and measured the bodies, looked 
up the literature of the subject, and at the next meeting of the Imperial 
Apple-growing Society exhibited the actual things, with the drawings, and 
read the notes. To show how little I esteemed the whole job I that day 
gave away my original drawing to an officer of the Boyal Gardens, Kew, 
and it has not been in my possession since. 
I was quite innocent. I did not know that I had done anything very 
wrong; but before my paper was printed I received a letter from Berkeley 
telling me to prepare myself for the worst, for, considering the state of 
political feeling, I should probably soon have “ a nest of hornets round my 
ears.” Being always of a timid and retiring disposition, this letter 
frightened me a good deal; but I was frightened still more on the evening 
of the same day, for whilst dining at a friend’s house my friend suddenly 
told me in confidence that a certain luminary of the opposition had dined 
there the day before and had said that he would, at the next meeting of a 
certain scientific society of which I was and still am a fellow, “skin me and 
kick me into a cocked hat.” Another gentleman said he would be able to 
“ sit on me easily.” It now became painfully apparent that I was mid¬ 
way between two fires. I had the Continental professors and doctors on 
one side (they had already bagged the prize, and probably spent the 
money) and the opposition on this side. I no sooner received a shot in 
the front than I felt another from behind, till at last there was no help for 
it; and, although I have never been of a disagreeable or pugnacious dis¬ 
position, I was obliged in self-defence to strike out right and left. 
Fortune aided me a little, for the Imperial Corn-growing Society 
gave me a commission for some small engravings, and a second Society 
d d better by awarding me a large medal of gold. I was now greatly 
am.i-xd. by the contentions and disputations of the learned professors 
