1846 
THE CULTIVATOR, 
341 
HOT IN POTATOES. 
Mr. Tucker —From my own observation, and from 
the reports of others, who have themselves either dug, 
or commenced digging their potatoes at the present 
date, I have come to the conclusion that the crop, at 
least in this county, is a very light one, seldom exceed¬ 
ing, and often not reaching 90 or 100 bushels per acre. 
In several cases the yield has not exceeded 50 to 60 
bushels per acre; indeed the price which they bring at 
this season, and which is nearly double what it gene¬ 
rally is, is a good criterion to show the estimate that is 
put on the crop in regard to quantity. The season has 
certainly been in most respects, a genial one for the po¬ 
tato crop, and till the latter part of July and beginning 
of August, potatoes generally never presented a finer 
appearance; but at that date, for the space of about a 
fortnight, the fatal blight, with its fatal curl and dark 
deadly poison, cut off and withered the tops, rotting at 
the same time, many, if not the most, of the largest po¬ 
tatoes, the outsides and remains of which are now dug 
out of many of the hills. I have seen some loads which 
appear to have spotted or specked ones among them, 
that the farmers were now bringing to market, but in 
general I.have reason to believe that there will be a 
good proportion of sound potatoes. My own, so far as 
dug, are perfectly sound, apparently, and I am inclined 
to think will keep. Those of my neighbors which I 
have seen are apparently in the same condition; our soil 
is mostly a loamy sand. I do not know that those 
grown or. clay soils have any more tendency to spoil, 
though I have been told of some cases where they de¬ 
cayed so rapidly after being dug, that they were unfit 
to be used in forty-eight hours. 
After reading the following facts from a late number 
of the (London) Gardeners’ Chronicle , it appears that 
the origin of the potato disease, is as yet, like truth, at 
the bottom of a most unfathomable well. “We fore¬ 
see,” says the writer, “an inundation of theories as to 
the cause of the potato disease, which every one finds 
himself capable of explaining, except those who have 
most information about it. We may therefore save the 
time of our readers and correspondents as well as 
our own, if we take this early opportunity of express¬ 
ing our intention of not giving insertion to any specu¬ 
lations upon the subject, unless they involve new mat¬ 
ter, and are supported by authenticated evidence. 
c< The following causes for the disease have already 
been suggested:— 
1. The bad season of 1845. 
2. Attacks of parasitical fungi. 
3. Insects, worms (the idlest of all speculations.) 
4. Frost. 
5. Lightning. 
6. Exhausted vitality. 
7. Bad cultivation. 
8. Guano and other manure. 
9. Miasmata, such as produce cholera in man, and 
murrain in cattle. 
“The last explaining an unknown cause by an un¬ 
known agency, whose mode of action in the first in¬ 
stance is beyond human perception, may be taken as 
the last and best refuge of theorists, for it is alike inca¬ 
pable of proof or disproof. 
“ Of the remainder we shall only say that they ap¬ 
pear to us to be all untenable. Even the season of 1845. 
which seemed to us and so many others peculiarly suited 
to bring on the affection, we long ago disclaimed as a 
true cause; for irresistible evidence to the contrary ac¬ 
cumulated during the winter. In fact, no theory of the 
potato disease will satisfy the conditions of the problem, 
unless it explains the following unquestionable facts:— 
“1. It has for some years past been violent in St. 
Helena. 
“ 2. It appeared in the year 1845 at Genoa and Lis¬ 
bon, and at Grahamstown, in the Cape colony, exclu¬ 
sively in potato crops obtained from English seed, and 
therefore of lhe growth of 1844. 
“ 3. It appeared in the year 1845 in the Bermudas, in 
fields cropped with potatoes obtained from the United | 
States, and not in those which had been cropped with 
Bermuda sets. 
“ 4. It has broken out in New-Holland, upon the au¬ 
thority of Dr. Francis Campbell, in a letter to the Syd¬ 
ney Morning Herald, dated March 18, 1846. 
“ 5. It was little known in bog or moss land, in 1845, 
and now has hroken out there with as much violence as 
elsewhere. 
“6. It is accompanied by an increased excitability of 
the potatoes both young and old. 
‘‘7. It invariably begins as a brown decay of the 
bark of the potato stem, under ground and an inch or 
two above its origin from the old set. To this we 
have never yet found an exception; all the blotching 
and searing of leaves are long posterior to this. 
“8. It has broken out at this moment (Aug. 12, 
1846,) in crops obtained on well drained unmanured 
land, from sets imported from Naples, the Azores, 
Oporto, and New Granada, every one of which places 
was reported to be uninfected.” 
What has rendered the disease so singular in this 
neighborhood, was the rapidity with which the potatoes 
first decayed, and the sudden stop that all at once was 
put to its ravages. A neighbor of mine, who is a mar¬ 
ket man, was so much affrighted at the ravages that 
were going on in his “carters,” that he dug them up as 
fast as he could, throwing out the affected ones, which 
were nearly half the crop; this was in the beginning 
of August; a part of the same potatoes being left till 
this time, are now apparently sound, though I should not 
deepnd on them. Rusticus. 
Bethlehem , Albany Co ., 1846. 
SOUTH DOWN SHEEP. 
In an English paper, we find an account of the ram- 
letting of Mr. Jonas Webb, of Babraham, in Cam¬ 
bridgeshire. The meeting is said to have been attend¬ 
ed by various noblemen, agriculturists and breeders 
from every county in the kingdom, and among the com¬ 
pany was our distinguished countryman, Mr. Colman. 
Sixty South Down Rams were let at an average of £16, 
or about $80, for the season. The highest priced one 
was hired by the Earl of Leicester for 50 guineas, or 
$250 the season. After the sale, about 250 noblemen, 
gentlemen, and agriculturists, sat down to a dinner 
provided by Mr. Webb. Several good speeches were 
made at the table, and among others, Mr. Colman was 
called on, who, after alluding to the happy conclusion 
to which the rumored war between England and the 
United States had been brought, said “ he had witnessed 
with much pleasure the improvements which science 
and art, combined with great practical knowledge, had 
enabled an individual to effect in one department of 
agriculture. He had seen the Lincolnshire sheep, 
weighing 70 lbs. to the quarter; he had seen the Dor¬ 
setshire sheep giving lambs twice a year; he had seen 
the Cheviot sheep of Scotland, and further north, an 
admirable and profitable animal; he had seen the Lei¬ 
cester sheep staggering under their own weight, and 
waddling oppressed from their oppressive fatness; but, 
in point of symmetry, weight, quality of wool, hardi¬ 
ness of constitution, and general profitableness to the 
farmer, he had seen none which equalled Mr. Webb’s 
South-Downs. Now-a-days, they heard much of uni¬ 
ting science with practice. He meant no disrespect to 
science when he said that science was not confined to 
mere mechanical rules, or mere book-knowledge. What 
was science—what was wisdom—but knowledge gather¬ 
ed from reading, from experience, from observation? 
And it was by the practical application of this informa¬ 
tion, that all theories must be tested. Though he 
honored science, he honored practice still more. He 
had no objection to theories, (he was indeed interested 
in theories,) but he preferred the results of practical ex¬ 
periments, and would give more for Mr. John Hudson’s 
opinion of the use of malt in fattening cattle, than for 
all the theories in Christendom; and he had more re¬ 
spect for the opinion of Mr. Jonas Webb on improving 
