POTATO CROP ENDANGERED.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2239, 16 November 1907, Page 2

POTATO CROP ENDANGERED.

RAVAGES OF BLIGHT IN THE DISTRICT. WARNING FROM AN EXPERT. In the course of a conversation yesterday with a “Times” reporter

Mr E. J. West disclosed a serious state of .affairs in connection with this season’s potato crop in the .district. According to Mr West, who knows tho whole district intimately, the potato blight has a very strong hold, especially in the Arai and Patutak'i valleys. Mr West’s advice is that all having crops of potatoes should not fail to spray them with a solution consisting of four .parts bluestone, four parts lime and forty parts of water. This spray is generally looked upon as an insurance policy and will, in Mr West’s opinion, amply repay those who go to the' .trouble of using it. There were numerous instances on record, he said, where the use of this spray had been the means of saving entire crops. Tho spray should bo applied every .ten or fifteen . days. Unless sjirayiing was done it was absolutely impossible to get anything like a fair percentage of good,'clean tubers. The cost of tho spray was so small that every farmer, no matter how small his crop, could afford to use it. Taking into consideration the prevalence of blight, Mr. West expressed the opinion that potatoes would run to £ls to £2O a ton this year. All persons with potato crops should spray at once. It was a suicidal policy to wait until the appearance of the blight, for it might come through and perhaps sjioil the whole crop in one night. Many people did not properly know the blight

when .they saw it. They saw the tops (getting brown and concluded that it was time to dig, whereas really the crops had been attacked by blight. If infected tubers were .found they should he burnt at once. The blight made its appearance, chiefly' when wet weather succeeded, a run of fine days, and Mr West no-'i ticed this in a marked degree during the recent showery weather. Some people, said Mr West, were under .the impression that potatoes Ranted on hill land would resist the flight, but he had found in his experience that such potatoes .were as liable to blight as those oil the flat.