408 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 30. 
try this; anil so I planted half my crop in November, and 
the remainder about March or April next spring. They 
were both my favourite Forty folds. Well, when summer 
came, and we began to dig early potatoes, I observed my 
gardener take up from the bed that had been latest planted, 
and I asked him why he did not take those that had been 
put into the ground in autumn. ‘ Because,’ he said, ‘ these 
are by far the best and the largest.’ Now, I never depend 
upon mere hearsay, and so I examined for myself, and I 
found his words to be true, and I have never planted pota¬ 
toes in autumn since. But, indeed, I am beginning to 
distrust all attempts to save this vegetable, and, like my 
sturdy farmer, to pay no attention to ‘ them men who writes 
in books about such things.’ Not for the Same reason by 
which he was influenced—thinking that ‘lie knew better 
than any of them ’—but because I think we are all equally 
ignorant of both the cause and the remedy. The time was 
when we could hardly do wrong : no manure, or any sort of 
manure—new soil or old soil—rich land or poor land— 
early-planted or late-planted—the tubers were all sound, 
although of different qualities, according to the advantages 
they each had. But how is it now ? Every man has a 
scheme to recommend; but, do what you will, the potatoes, 
under every sort of management, are diseased. I have 
planted various lands with stable manure, and ash-pit 
manure, and peat and dung mixed, and peat alone, and 
rotten leaves, and no manure at all; and yet I this year 
see little or no difference : all are diseased to the extent of 
perhaps three-fourths of the crop. You are, however, not 
to suppose that our Westmoreland soil is not good potato 
soil; on the contrary, it has been thought by many to be 
the tinest in England for that crop. It is the light deep 
red soil that has always been considered the best for barley, 
and oats, and turnips, and potatoes; and farmers from the 
neighbouring counties used to send to us for seed. But I 
fear the plant is leaving us, and that no great difference will 
be found in any part of Europe. We may, however, 
although without much hope of success, try what we can 
to preserve it; and my advice is—plant as late as you can, 
ripen as quick as you can, and take up as early as you can ; 
for I find the longer they are in the ground the worse they 
are. It seems to me to be a mistake to suppose that plant¬ 
ing early will make the root ripen early. The fact may be 
that the seed is making less progress in the cold ground 
during winter than in the warm and sheltered place where 
it is housed. You say that we are to use no manure, and 
complain that I used it in my farmer’s field ; hut you are to 
understand that with us, the potato crop, like the turnip 
crop, is only preparatory to a crop of corn, and the same 
manure serves for both. It is true that the potatoes might 
be planted without manure, and a sufficient quantity given 
afterwards to remunerate the farmer for the use of the land; 
but that is not the way here, and you know how difficult it 
is to turn farmers out of their old ways. I told another of 
my farmers that you said we ought to plant no varieties 
that would not ripen, and be ready to store, by the middle 
of July. He smiled, and said, ‘ That is very right, but 
where are we to find potatoes that will ripen in our part of 
the country by the middle of July?” The fact is, that is 
the time when we are beginning to take up our early half- 
grown potatoes; and now, in September, we are taking up 
the ripe ones, and this is quite as soon as they are ready. 
Much has been said about long-cultivated or worn-out soil, 
and fresh soil that has never felt the plough. Well, one of 
my neighbours has got in his farm some pasture land that 
stands rather high, and had never been ploughed, and he 
thought to escape by planting his crop there. About a 
fortnight ago he told us that his potatoes were all sound; 
but I, being rather sceptical, desired my gardener, two or 
I three days ago, to examine them, which (being a liberty I 
j could safely take) he did ; and he took up a single root, at 
which there were about eight well-sized tubers. He brought 
home six that were all diseased, and two that he considered 
sound he loft behind. The next day we told our neighbour 
what we had done, and he said, ‘Ah, sir, when I saw them 
a fortnight ago they were all right, but now they are all 
wrong.’ There is another remark, which my cook made to 
me yesterday, and which it may not be amiss to repeat for 
the benefit of some of your readers. ‘ Sir,’ said she, ‘ we 
must always take care that no bad potatoes are put into the 
kettle with the good ones, for if they are boiled together ■ 
they all taste bad alike.’ 
“ Thus far have I said all that occurs to mo nt present 
upon flic culture of the potato, and in reading what 1 say, ■ 
I must request you to consider the difference between our 
climate in the north and yours in the south, and tell us 
what we ought to do, who cannot get ripe potatoes before 
August and September ; for we like them as well as you do. 
“ If you think your readers will not be weary of my 
prosing, and you do not begrudge the space that my letter j 
will occupy, I will now venture to call attention to a very 
different Hew of our subject, but which appears to me to be I 
as valuable,'and far more interesting, than anything we have 
hitherto said. I think I am correct when I say, that the 
potato disease did not appear before the introduction of 
guano into this country, and I have sometimes thought that 
we owe our misfortune to that foreign manure. For my 
part, I believe that the leaf is struck by some new insect, 
which inoculates the plant, as it were, with a fatal disease: 1 
the virus circulates with the sap, and carries rottenness j 
down to the tuber, which perishes ; and I think it very j 
possible that the eggs may be mingled with the guano that j 
is now so universally used. ‘Ah, but,’ say some cavillers, 
‘who has seen the insect? Show it to us, and we will 
admit the probability of your theory.' Alas! who can 
trace the footsteps of the Almighty, or calculate the extent I 
of His wisdom and power ? Geologists will tell you that I 
some of our hardest flints and rocks are principally com- I 
posed of insects so minute, that it would take a million to i 
cover a space occupied by a grain of sand. These, without 
instruments, are invisible to human sight, and yet contain 
muscles, and nerves, and digestive organs, and are the food 
of other insects larger than themselves. And they too, no 
doubt, prey upon others still less, and so we may descend 
in the scale of creation till we are wholly bewildered, and 
can reason no longer; and yet the very smallest of these 
insects may contain a poison, and a fecundity sufficient, in 
a very few years, to consume or wither up every green plant 
in our country. Read what some travellers say of the 
devastation occasioned over hundreds of miles of forest, in 
a few weeks, by insects suddenly brought upon them. Then 
let me be no longer asked to shew the instrument by which 
the Almighty works, either for our solace or our punish¬ 
ment. ‘ Behold I go forward, but He is not there; and 
backward, but I cannot perceive Him; on the left hand 
where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him ; Ho liideth 
himself on the right hand, but I cannot see Him.’ 
“ But yet the Almighty permits us—nay, challenges us—to 
reason with Him; and I may very fairly be asked what I 
conceive to be His motive for so suddenly depriving us of 
this most valuable article of food. Tins , however, is holy 
ground upon which we are now treading, and we must act 
with great reverence and befitting humility. 
“ I believe that Cobbett used to say, the potato was the ' 
poor man’s curse. Now, I believe that all God’s good gifts 1 
are intended as blessings; but may we not turn the blessing 
into a curse, as we do in many other things which He has 
given ? The potato is an esculent that used to be of very 
easy production, and contained all that was necessary to ' 
maintain human life ; and when men could, by a few weeks j 
labour, procure what was sufficient to support them and 
their families for a year, they were satisfied, and spent the 
remainder in idleness ; idleness led to mischief, as it usually ! 
does; and thus they turned God’s blessing into a curse. 
Now, I ask, has not this been the case in other countries, I 
and was it not advancing rapidly to the same point in our \ 
own ? And may not God say to His ministering agents, : 
‘ Remove this stumbling-block out of their way ? ’ Yes, He 
may say it in love, and in pity, and we may have reason to 
thank Him for His salutary chastisement. And if the fiat 
of the Almighty be gone forth, He will mock at all our puny 
efforts to counteract His will, and we may lose entirely the i 
blessing we were not worthy to retain. But we may, perhaps, 1 
not improperly carry our speculations into a very different 
course. I believe we are on the eve of a great crisis in the 
world’s affairs, and that God is making all things, small as 
well as great, to work together in forwarding His great 
purpose. The millions of acres throughout the globe that 
have hitherto been untrodden by man, or occupied by the 
degraded and idolatrous savage, it would seem _n.ro now to 
