September 4, 1890. 1 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
195 
H OWEVER sharply opinions may be divided on certain matters, 
they are forgotten for the time in the face of a threatened 
•famine, and the best dictates of humanity evoke feelings of sym¬ 
pathy with the poor people who have to sutler extreme privations 
through the loss of a staple crop. This unfortunately appears to 
be not a very remote probability in some districts in Ireland. It 
was hoped by all that the reports which have been published from 
time to time of the condition of the Potato crops there were not 
well founded. It is well known that the element of fear tends to 
exaggeration of expression in reference to a dreaded calamity that 
is felt to be impending, and it would be idle to ignore the fact that 
in these days of a wild race for news there is a strong disposition 
to indulge in sensationalism to arrest the attention of a never 
satisfied public. Therefore it was that the real condition of the 
crops in the Sister Isle was slowly understood outside it. I was 
amongst those who had indulged in the hope that the Potatoes in 
large districts, where practically nothing else is grown, were not so 
severely stricken as had been depicted. I would fain hope so still, 
but since Mr. Lewis Castle has seen and described them the ex¬ 
treme seriousness of the visitation may be admitted. My 
coadjutor is not prone to exaggeration in statement, and he 
would have much greater pleasure in showing the best side of 
Ireland than the worst, therefore what he has said on the subject 
under notice may be taken as a thoughtful record of actual 
facts. 
Confirmatory evidence is afforded by the official report of the 
Irish Land Commissioners, which deals with the condition and 
prospects of the Potato crop up to August 15th. The report is a 
gloomy one, but not without a ray of light. Only in five or six 
counties is the crop said to be an average one, and it is noteworthy 
that this occurs in districts where the crops are grown for sale. 
Whether those districts are naturally adapted for Potato culture, 
and so situated in respect to altitude, drainage, and rainfall as to 
be repellent to the spread of the disease, I know not ; but the 
report contains internal evidence that a goodly share of the 
immunity is due to intelligent management and good cultivation. 
Where Potatoes are extensively grown for sale in England much 
thought is devoted to the production of full and sound crops. The 
selection of varieties best adapted to the soil and situation, the pre¬ 
paration of the soil, the choosing of tubers for planting both in 
respect to size, soundness, change of seed, vitality, also manuring 
and general routine work, all receive the most careful attention, 
founded both on experience on a large scale, and trials of different 
methods on a small, conducted on a scientific basis with the object 
of gaining information that will enable the best possible return to 
be obtained from the amount invested in the culture. The prices 
for Potatoes have ruled so low of late years that it has only been 
by the utmost care and best possible management that even a small 
profit could be obtained ; and for gaining anything like a satisfac- 
ory return the fullest crops of the best marketable tubers have 
been essential. Necessity has stimulated endeavour in the produc¬ 
tion of such crops, and there is no manner of doubt that they are 
now much better than was the case some years ago, when a loose 
slipshod routine generally prevailed. It may be, then, that in 
those districts of Ireland where the crops are the best and the 
murrain the least destructive that the happy result is to a consider- 
No. 532 ,—Vol. XXI., Thied Series. 
able extent the outcome of better management than obtains where 
worthless disease-stricken crops are so lamentably prevalent. 
There are, no doubt, localities in Ireland, as in England, which 
are distinctly unfavourable to the production of full sound crops of 
Potatoes, and extremely liable to the attacks of the murrain. It 
may, indeed, be beyond the power of man to succeed in the culture 
during a drenching season, and where the winds, as the peasant 
said, “ bring the blight from the sea.” They bring it inasmuch as 
they bring the means by which it is engendered, exists, and spreads 
—moisture laden air over already stagnant soil. Under those con¬ 
ditions the most robust varieties, with the strongest leaf power for 
maintaining the purity of the sap, may eventually be seized by the 
enemy and converted into a mass of blackness and decay ; but they 
will be the last to succumb, as the succulent stemmed sorts, not strong 
enough to stand upright, and with weak acting leaver, will be, as 
they always have been, the first to fail. It may be assumed that 
at least a large number of the Irish peasantry with their patchwork 
plots, which just keep them and Denis, the pig, alive in fair sea¬ 
sons, may not be aware of these facts, and if they were, are not 
able to procure more suitable varieties for battling with adverse 
circumstances, but must, perforce, plant such as they have, and of 
these possibly, and in seasons of scarcity certainly, the worst tubers 
of essentially bad stocks, because the best have been eaten, the 
small and weak being saved for seed. That used to be the custom 
in English counties before the scourge came, and for some years 
subsequently, until familiar varieties were annihilated, stronger 
sorts raised, and better methods adopted. 
That the disease is intensified not by inferior sorts alone but by 
impoverished soil is apparent from the observations of the Com¬ 
missioners, such as an “absolute failure in poor land” in one 
district ; and in another, “In good well-farmed land the disease 
is not serious, but in poor and badly farmed land the tops are 
black and tubers affected.” Then speaking of another county 
they say— 
“ Crops very much below average ; disease general throughout ; 
distress appears worse along the seacoast, where Potatoes planted 
in bog were much damaged by early frosts. The effect of the 
blight has been to almost destroy the crop in some cases ; stalks 
blackened and withered up ; tubers not as yet affected except in 
rare instances, but generally very small and immature, owing to 
blight setting in unusually early. Tubers in many instances will 
be absolutely unfit for human food. In the poorer badly cultivated 
districts the crop will be an entire failure ; in good dry well farmed 
land results will prove much better.” 
That is only what might be expected. If everything but water 
of which the Potato is composed is drawn out of the land by con¬ 
tinuous cropping, the result is inevitable. Neither an Englishman 
nor an Irishman can grow good Potatoes under those conditions, 
any more than he can draw good money out of a bank if he has not 
put any in. It is true that the “ dry ” land indicated as favourable 
cannot be made so by cultivators in a wet season ; but much land 
might be made drier than it is by draining, and even without the 
cost of digging trenches and laying tiles, however desirable and 
profitable such work may be, but simply by deeper stirring and 
breaking up the hard crust of the subsoil, that may have been un¬ 
disturbed for generations, so that the water can pass more readily 
down : and also—and this is not less important—by planting strong, 
rigid stemmed varieties thinly, so that the sun can shine down 
between the rows on occasional bright days, and evaporation can 
have free action on every favourable opportunity. When the 
ground is covered by a thicket of soft stems, the result both of 
inherent weakness and close planting, the soil is simply saturated 
—choked, and reeking vapour on warm days rots the growths in its 
struggle to escape. We have no right to expect healthy plants 
under these circumstances, and the unhealthy are attacked by the 
fungus the first, and suffer the most. 
From a remark made by Mr. Castle in his article last week it is 
almost certain that the disease is unwittingly invited by the 
No. 2188.—Vol. LXXXIII., Old Series. 
