THE POTATO DISEASE. 
157 
In driving, never feel in a hurry, be at home ; and 
for that purpose fix well before the start, so that 
comfortable quarters can be had on the road with¬ 
out fretting to push ahead. See well that the 
sheep havi plenty of time to rest and eat, and 
plenty of good substantial food : for such a purpose 
have them accustomed before starting to eating 
threshed oats, which are a nourishing and unstimu¬ 
lating food for the road. Recollect that sheep will 
naturally be a little feverish on the road, and will 
require plenty of good water, and that often, and 
on that account never over-salt , for fear they 
should drink so much as would cause them to 
scour bad, and thereby become weakened. 
Andrew Stone, M. D. 
Lake Court House, Ind., Feb., 1845. 
THE POTATO DISEASE. 
I shall not attempt to account for this disease, 
but shall give some facts derived from experience, 
which may go far towards a prevention. Many 
writers have attempted to explain the cause of the 
disease; some by supposing it to be insectial, others 
again say it is caused by a fungus. If a medical man 
should find insects or proud flesh in or about a 
wound, would he pronounce the insects or proud 
flesh to be the cause of the wound, or the effects of 
diseased action ? It must be known, or should be, 
to all natural philosophers, that when vitality 
ceases, either in the whole, or in any part of organ¬ 
ized matter, it immediately begins to change 
into other organisms, many of which products bear 
no resemblance to the original organic product. It 
follows, of course, that we should be very careful 
in our investigations not to attribute effects to 
causes; for, by such a mode of reasoning, we never 
can find a cure for either animal or vegetable 
diseases. 
In raising potatoes in the part of England I came 
from, the rocky strata calcareous, we always found 
the best and soundest product from new land that 
had received no manure ; and never considered they 
could be of prime quality when grown in soils 
highly manured. To obtain choice potatoes for 
family use, we set men to grub up the bushy dis¬ 
tricts, and in such soils we never failed in raising 
a sound and choice product. Limestone soils we 
always considered more agreeable to the potato 
crop than soils principally argillaceous. The 
farms, therefore, on the chalk downs, were cele¬ 
brated for this esculent. I had an uncle on the 
Wiltshire downs, at a town called Kennett, whose 
potatoes were in great repute, and I have seen spots 
in a field, plowed for potatoes, turn up wliite chalk 
to the surface. He fatted his pigs and cattle on 
steamed potatoes, until two or three weeks before 
killing he gave them grain to harden the fat. 
They were washed in a machine, five bushels at a 
time, and the steamer held about thirty bushels. 
He once gave to a hog some of the liquor left in the 
kettle below the steamer, and this liquor nearly 
killed the animal, bringing all its hair off, and it 
was more than two months before it fully recovered 
from its effect. 
In confirmation of the advantage of lime in soils, 
for raising this crop, we had presented last fall to 
the Brooklyn Natural History Society, three sam¬ 
ples of potatoes raised by Mr. Ladanskie, near 
Jamaica, Long Island ; one portion of the land was 
manured with stable manure, one portion left with¬ 
out any manure, and a third portion was well 
limed. Those produced on the limed land were 
perfectly sound, whilst both the others were gene¬ 
rally defective. 
I have one more fact to offer which I consider 
highly important to our farmers. We made an 
acre of garden on the sea-sand, at Gravesend, Long 
Island, and in the compost heap we used about 
thirty per cent, of fine charcoal. It would be use¬ 
less to describe all the other materials used, as they 
were numerous, being a collection of everything we 
could scrape together that could be obtained with¬ 
out cost. Among the numerous articles were the 
refuse of a whiting manufactory, of about half a 
sloop load, and twenty-one barrels of the refuse of 
a soda water manufactory, or pure plaster of Paris. 
In this garden we planted our winter potatoes the 
year before last, and they were not only sound, but 
the most delightfully tasted of the kind we had ever 
eaten. The last year some of the same kind were 
planted on a piece of old meadow land, and they 
were not only unsound, but disagreeable to the 
taste, and we had to discard them, and buy for 
family use. 
I infer from the above-named facts, that lime 
unburnt, or burnt, and charcoal, are the best pre¬ 
ventives for the disease in potatoes, and for other¬ 
wise improving their quality. 
Any farmer, in this woody country, has waste 
limbs of trees sufficient to make one or two thou¬ 
sand bushels of charcoal annually, which he could 
render sufficiently fine for his purpose, by passing 
a heavy roller over it on any hard ground. This 
would be no great labor for an industrious man. 
Let him, when he plants a potato, put in with it 
about a quarter of a pint of fine charcoal and ground 
oyster shell in about equal quantities, and I feel 
pretty confident that his product will not only be 
sound, but of very superior quality. 
Farmers who cannot obtain charcoal or ground 
shell, can buy it ready prepared, and mixed in due 
proportions, from a Mr. Atwater, of New Haven, 
Connecticut; or it can be obtained in this city. 
Mr. Atwater has invented a machine for grinding 
bones, shell, &c., fine enough for all agricultural and 
horticultural purposes Such a machine is a great 
desideratum for boiu, as this article, when in lumps, 
will take many years to decompose; and its beneficial 
effects be so slowly developed, as to induce the con¬ 
sumer to condemn them as useless. Mr. A. will 
prepare a mixture of fine charcoal and lime shell, 
also of charcoal and ground bone. I am pretty 
certain, from actual experiment, as before mention¬ 
ed, that charcoal and lime, if planted with the pota¬ 
to, about a gill in each hole, would prevent the rot. 
I should expect as good or a better result from the 
charcoal and ground bone, as the bone supplies not 
only lime but phosphate, one of the elements of that 
esculent. At all events, let some of our farmers 
try the latter, and report the result; for I cannot 
speak of it from actual trial, the only real test to be 
relied on. It will be perceived that one bushel of 
either of the above mixtures will suffice for two 
hundred and fifty plants; a cheap and safe manure, 
producing no weeds. 
Charcoal should always be used with bone ma- 
