THE CULTIVATOR. 
351 
cattle. For fattening hogs, we have used with advantage 
the following mixtures. 1. Two parts potatoes and two 
parts pumpkins; boil together till they can be easily mash¬ 
ed fine—then add one part meal, stirring and mixing inti- 
mately together. The heat of the potatoes and pump¬ 
kins will scald or cook the meal, and when cold the 
mixture will be a stiff pudding. 2. Two parts potatoes, 
and two of ripe, palatable apples, (eithersweet or sour;) 
boil till they can be mashed fine—then add one part meal, 
(either that from corn, barley, or oats and peas, allow¬ 
ing the same weights,) and mix together while the po¬ 
tatoes and apples are hot. 
Hogs seem more fond of this food when it has slightly 
fermented, (not become pungently sour,) and they ap¬ 
pear to fatten faster if it is fed in this state. We have 
never seen hogs thrive faster than when fed on these 
mixtures, with occasionally a little dairy-slop, and we 
have always found the pork solid and of good quality. 
In regard to the relative value, compared with grain, 
of different kinds of vegetables for feeding stock, there 
is, perhaps, more diversity of opinion than on almost 
any other branch of husbandry. Some, for instance, be¬ 
lieve that four bushels of potatoes are equivalent to one 
bushel of corn meal ; others think potatoes should be 
reckoned higher; others again hold them less valuable, 
while some declare that stock will scarcely fatten at all 
on potatoes, and that for milch cows, if they increase 
the quantity, they injure the quality of the milk. It is 
not easy to understand fully the cause of such contrary 
opinions; but there is no doubt that it may be considered 
partly attributable to the different degrees of nutriment 
which the same kinds of vegetables possess when grown 
on different soils, and under different circumstances, and 
partly to the different systems observed in feeding. ’ Ac¬ 
cording to some chemical analyses, turneps and other 
vegetables contain considerably more nutriment when 
grown on some soils, or by the aid of some manures, 
than when produced on other soils. Potatoes produced 
in soils deficient in carbonaceous matter, are acknow¬ 
ledged to be less nutritive than others. 
But probably the principal cause of vegetables having 
been undervalued for animals, is their having been used 
in an improper manner. Boussingault and his associates 
restricted the food of certain animals to potatoes, turneps, 
mangel wurlzel, and carrots, and from the result of this 
experiment, inferred that these vegetables would not 
fatten swine or cattle—that they reduced the flesh of 
milch cows, and made the milk poorer—and that all the 
butyraceous particles the milk contained came from the 
fat previously deposited in the system. 
Without attempting to discuss this matter in detail, we 
would remark that to a practical man, accustomed to 
feeding animals with vegetables, these results, though at 
variance with others, would not appear strange. It is 
well known that graminiverous animals require food of a 
fibrous nature, and that an essential function of some 
species, rumination, cannot be carried on without it. It 
is also known that the articles alluded to have, when 
fed by themselves, a laxative or cathartic action; and 
thus for various reasons, we see the necessity of feeding- 
straw or hay with vegetables, in order to enable the 
animal to derive full benefit from them. In the ex¬ 
periment of Boussingault, the animals, it should be re¬ 
membered, were confined to the vegetables, without any 
fibrous or absorbing substances to check the tendency to 
purgation, and keep the food in the intestines in such a 
state, and for such a length of time, that the nutritive 
particles could be assimilated. If the animals had been 
fed wholly on corn meal or wheat flour instead of potatoes 
and turneps, the effects would not, probably, have been 
precisely similar, but no practical farmer would expect 
stock to thrive or continue healthy for any considerable 
length of time on either of these substances. And yet we 
do not see why it might not with as much propriety be ar¬ 
gued from a failure to fatten stock on meal and flour, 
that it was owing to a deficiency of nutriment in these 
articles, as that the failure in the former case was attribu¬ 
table to this cause. 
Preparations should be made for winter as soon ss 
possible. 
DISEASE IN THE POTATO. 
With the exception of the state of Maine and the 
British Provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 
we think the potato crop has not this year been as 
much injured in this country by what is called rot, as it 
was in either of the two years last preceding the present. 
In Europe, however, the ravages of the disease have 
been more extensive than ever before. The foreign 
journals teem with accounts from all quarters of the in¬ 
jury suffered, and with various conjectures and theories 
as to to the nature of the cause and remedy 
The Edinburgh Quarterly Journal publishes a letter 
from Professor Johnston in which he makes the fol¬ 
lowing remarks:— 
“This disease in the potatoe has already called forth 
many hasty opinions, almost all partially true, because 
founded on one or two facts, but nearly all unsound as 
! general expressions of the truth, since they are contra¬ 
dicted by the experience of other practical men in other 
districts of the country. We are clearly unable as yet, 
to assign either any genera) cause for the disease or any 
universal remedy. Something may possibly be suggest¬ 
ed by the analysis of sound and diseased potatoes, for 
which the Highland Society has offered a premium, 
though, in the present state of our knowledge upon the 
subject, even this is doubtful. The most tha?t chemistry 
has yet done for this question is in the shape of sugges¬ 
tions for experiment.” 
The Buffalo Pilot furnishes a translation of a paper 
originally prepared by Prof. Chas. Morren, of the Uni¬ 
versity of Liege. He conjectures that the disease pro¬ 
ceeds from a description of mold or fungus. It may be 
said that this theory has the appearance of plausibility, 
as the blight or blast in grain, has been pretty clearly 
traced to a fungus; the spread and increase of which is 
however, greatly dependent on the weather, heat and 
moisture, or a damp sultry atmosphere, favoring its pro¬ 
pagation. But until something more shall have been 
actually proved by experiment or practice in regard to 
the prevention of the difficulty complained of, we do 
not think it necessary to occupy much space in giving 
theories in reference to the cause of the disease or its 
remedy. We give place notwithstanding to the follow¬ 
ing extract from Prof. Morren’s paper, which we are 
sure will at least be read with interest; 
“ For some time I have been in the daily habit of ob¬ 
serving from stage to stage, the progress of the disease 
in various fields of potatoes. It commences unquestion¬ 
ably, with the leaves and superior parts of the plants. 
I have even observed the flowers and balls first attacked. 
A part of the tissue becomes unhealthy, loses its color, 
and changes rapidly to yellow; the spots then become 
gray, and within a day or two subsequently, the under 
side of the leaf and fruit will show a sort of white down 
or mold. The microscope shows that this down pro¬ 
ceeds from a sort of fungus, that fructifies upon the pile, 
or beard, that thickly covers the under side of the leaf 
of the potato plant. 
“This fungus is of an extreme tenuity; but reproduces 
in an incredible measure. Its trunk is composed of se¬ 
veral erect, jointed fibres, bearing at their summits one 
or more branches, always double, and at the ends of 
which appear the reproductive bodies, in the form of an 
egg, but which do not really exceed in diameter the 
one hundredth part of a millimetre, or the 393,700 part 
of an inch. Perhaps it will be said that this is a small 
affair to make such ravages, but I would ask is the itch 
a disease less to be feared, because the animals produ¬ 
cing it exist only in a microscopic state? 
“ Immediately following the formation of the yellow 
spot, and the developments of the botrydis upon the po¬ 
tato leaf, the stem begins to feel the deleterious influ¬ 
ence. Here and there the epidermis begins to turn brown, 
and finally black; and when the phases of the disease 
are carefully watched, through the microscope, it will 
be readily perceived that it is in the bark the fatal germ 
exists. The morbid agent communicates its action from 
the bark to the inner epidermis, and although this lat¬ 
ter does not always show the fungus itself, yet it is no 
the less fatally affected. To those who have any idea o* 
