THE POTATO DISEASE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 23, 5 December 1861, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE POTATO DISEASE.

Wc have numerous letter’s on the potato disease and some very clover people fancy they have caught us in a trap together with our theory that the cause is atmospheric, and they ask with a very confident sort of expectation that they have stripped us up, “ Jlow is it that the disease never appeared till 1810 ? because,” say they “ we must always have had lightning, which is electricity in its most powerful and mischievous form.” There is nothing easier than assuming. What evidence have we that the disease is not as old as the root itself ? What was the rot, as it was called ? If these very knowing gentlemen inquire a little further back, they will find that there was a great failure of the potato crop in 1795, and a writer in 1819, when, perhaps, people begun to be more inquiring, cautions farmers, when storing potatoes, to throw aside “the diseased ones.” In the visitation which the three Whig government magicians were sent to Ireland to inquire into, the effects were so extensive as to rivet the attention of all scientific men. In the Bath Papers, vol. 8, mention is made of a great failure about 1718, and Mr. Billingsley, a celebrated agriculturist in his day, writes in 1792, after confessing the curl, as he called it, was a mystery, “ I once planted two tons of potatoes in the month of June which were more than half rotten ;” but somehow the writers all attributed the disease to something detected in the diseased parts, whereas what they see is only some one of the effects, and certainly not the cause and Mr. Billingsley’s words may be honestly quoted and used by the most learned scibbler on the subject, as well as all the unlearned, for ho says, “ What conclusions can then be drawn from these premises—but that,.with all our wisdom, we are perfectly ignorant of some of the most simple operations in nature.” Dr. Smee’s aphis vastata was the common green fiy which attacks our roses when out of health. He saw a few on several potato plants, one he showed us, and forthwith jumped to the conclusion that they alone were the cause, and published wonderful discovery, almost at the same time that numerous other writers discovered that it was something clse ; and now our original notion—confirmed by visiting many plantations that were attacked, and by the success of the practice of cutting down the haulm immediately, as well as by experiments made by ourselves and Mr. Charles Chapman, of Brentford—is so far taken for proved that we may fairly ask whether it has not been ascertained and universally admitted—lst, that the disease commences at top, and descends in time to tubers 2nd, that if the plant be exit down in time the tubers are saved. Our early impresssions, published in 181 G-7, and often reported since, also corroborated by many, that electricity is the agent is unshaken. The three Whig job commissioners have in their reports shown how utterly science was at fault, and now we really wish some of the scientific gentlemen would inquire seriously into the effects of electricity on vegetable ns well as animal life, and prove that we arc wrong not by vague contradictions and impertinent questions, but by showing us some other agent, that can in an instant, as it were, sweep across a portion of-a plantation, and decompose the tops of growing

plants, leaving putrefaction to finish the work of destruction, if not removed before the poison can descend. As to the effects that are produced by putrefaction, they will not be the same in two places. Different insect life and fnv.gi in different localities must be expected, therefore no wonder that the professors came to different conclusions. However, be it as it may, a little information founded on plain facts and practice, is better than hundreds who have saved their crop sound year after year, by cutting down the haulm before it was too late, heartily thank the Gazette and Lloyd’s for the repeated cautions on this national subject. We find, however, now that the papers are generally taking up the matter, and there comes out the very same advieo we gave sixteen years ago, as a new disco very.— Lloyd's Weekly.