48 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Feb. 
REMARKS ON THE POTATO ROT. 
Messrs. Editors —Although the subject of the po¬ 
tato rot has been dwelt upon through the press, and in 
almost every other way , until it seems to be pretty well 
made “ threadbare/'—though many have given it up 
that it is, and therefore must continue to be,—it still 
appears to us to be a subject on which something can 
be said and done, and that, peradventure, some course 
may yet be round out and adopted, whereby its ravages 
may be checked, if they cannot be wholly stopped. 
When a new disease breaks out in a country and 
community, the first object of the skilful physician is, to 
note it in all its qualities and peculiar bearings upon 
the patient. He invariably finds some more liable to 
attacks from all such diseases than others, and if the 
disease becomes prevalent, he finds that different ma¬ 
nagement is necessary among his various patients, in 
order to obtain power over their disorders, according 
to the nature and character of the attack, or the consti¬ 
tutional predisposition of the invalid to baffle or en¬ 
tourage the workings of the malady. 
Now we premise that this is just the way in which 
the farmer should manage all ailments which may arise, 
not only in his herds and flocks, but in the productions 
of his tillage. They are all subject to disease, and often, 
■as has been the case with the potato, to new diseases. 
In the remarks we have to offer on the potato disease 
of the last year, we shall aim at accuracy. Yet we do 
not suppose that the result of our observation will cor¬ 
respond with that of everybody else, for, as we have 
said before, disorders of the same name operate under 
different forms, as circumstances vary. That it will 
prove so in this, will not be marvellous. 
We remark, then, firstly, on the general character of 
the season. Our winter, a staid and healthy old fellow, 
even for New England, where winters always wait to 
hear the first song of the spring birds, and gather the 
earliest flowers that come to usher in the floral year, 
though it gave us more than one hundred days of sleigh¬ 
ing, was in unusual haste to hie him away to where the 
cold ice seas of the north would greet him with more 
congenial salutations, than those that whistled their 
melodies along dur hill sides, so that the labors of the 
field were commenced at a much earlier date than usual. 
Planting, which is usually done from the 10th to the 
25th of May, was much of it finished in April, a month 
which, though it brought some fine showers, was not 
remarkable for a very liberal abundance of rain; May, 
too, was much dryer than Mays are apt to be, and 
somewhat too cool to aid the early springing of the 
crops into anything like precocious luxuriance, and 
June, sweet month of beauty and melody, closed up the 
clouds with the hand of parsimony, so that the farmer, 
as he looked upon his meadows, saw with saddened 
countenance, that fears might well occupy his mind 
that a season of dearth awaited his flocks and herds. 
Perhaps the rains of these two months would have been 
-“sufficient for the cravings of vegetation, had they fallen 
gea/itly and been of longer continuance, rather than fall¬ 
ing in powerful showers, and flowing off the earth 
rather than penetrating it. Indeed, they were in most 
'-cases followed with high, cold winds, calculated to dis¬ 
perse the surface moisture, insomuch that it was a 
common observation, “how soon the ground gets dry 
rafter the rains.” Let us note here the general effect 
q&fcsuch rains and the after winds, is, to form a crust on 
the surface of many lands, especially such as are in¬ 
clined to clay, whereby they in a great measure lose 
their permeability to air and moisture, and which also 
prevents the evaporation of gases which may be injuri¬ 
ous to vegetation if it contains them. 
In July the atmosphere was more humid, and the 
rains more gentle, so that their influence on vegeta¬ 
tion, especially grass, operated entirely to change the 
face of it, and the farmer who did not hurry his labor in 
the meadow, found an increased burthen as the reward 
of his patience. 
Potatoes did not appear to suffer for moisture in any 
part of the season, other than that the quantity in the 
hill was diminished from former years, as might well 
be supposed would be the case under the circumstan¬ 
ces. 
The first intimation we had of the appearance of 
the rot, was on one of the last days of July. The crop 
affected was growing on a tract of land from which the 
earth had been removed in building the Western rail¬ 
road, to fill, or raise an embankment through the 
swamp, whose qualities as a sinking fund concern, 
were so celebrated during the operation, consequently 
nothing but the subsoil or hardpan remained. This 
had been improved by good tillage, and manuring with 
unfermented manures, for, perhaps, three years. The 
location rather low, and in proximity to swampy lands, 
subject to heavy fogs. It was »the only instance we 
heard of until about the 10th of August, when a return 
of lowering weather, attended bv southerly winds, came 
on. The complaint of the striking of the disease was 
heard from every quarter. Many farmers immediately 
adopted the experiment of mowing the tops, a labor 
which in most cases proved unavailing. In its pro¬ 
gress, it was. however, clearly to be seen that lands 
inclining to coldness and humidity, and such as had the 
appearance of sour soils . were the first to be affected. 
The weather cleared off in a day or two, and the 
northwest breezes seemed to check, if not stop its pro¬ 
gress, About the middle of the month, another cloudy 
turn, accompanied with some rain, and south wind, 
came on. and it again commenced its ravages. One 
farmer informed us that he examined his field and dug 
potatoes in it on Saturday, and no symptom of the 
disease was to be found. The wind came south that 
night, and was followed with rain, and on Monday or 
Tuesday he examined it again , and he did not believe 
there was a potato but what was affected. The result 
at harvest time I have not heard. From the middle of 
August the weather became more serene, and we heard 
no more of the rot. 
As regards our own crop;—we plowed the latter part 
of April. The soil a slaty loam. Land had been in 
pasture for twelve or fourteen years, and had no ma¬ 
nure of any kind except what was left on it by the stock 
feeding. Plowed eight inches deep, thoroughly har¬ 
rowed, furrowed, and potatoes planted in the furrows. 
No vegetable or animal manure was used, except tw© 
small loads, spread on one corner, and harrowed in. 
After the potatoes were dropped, (planted about the 
20th of May,) a table spoonful of plaster was thrown in 
each hill. They were hoed twice, and the hills but 
slightly raised. When the disease gave evidence of its 
existence in our neighborhood, we went to them scythe 
in hand, and found that in some parts of the field it 
gave evidence of its existence there. In mowing the 
tops we designed to give the experiment a fair trial. 
Accordingly, in doing it. we left rows, parts of rows, 
and squares of four to sixteen hills each, in various parts 
of the field, uncut, and waited the result. 
We remark here, that at this time, the ground gar® 
