The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1872-09-10 00:00:00

THE POTATO DISEASE.

_
The following opportune lettere from the Rev.
H. Moule, of Fordington Vicarage, have recently
appeared in the Times:-
Bi.,—lt is well that, on thesubject of some a.lsviati..e
of the tulPetidind potato fanzine• an utterance from no
high an authority so Dr. Hooker should so soon bailee°,
sad that on the recommendation of tlio Prime Minister.
For although there is little tiat is really practical
((thistly beau.* cf tbe time and labour and cost involved)
either. in Professor Hignalow's method or in the sopposei
mod. of ''desiosaticia," yet, as pilsuily siTesr, fr, m ths
lettere in your solemn. of tads,, such an nit rant.
high', sudgeative, it will elicit much informtin, and
serve to enforce that attention w hich col .1 cri•l•
in the natural history of the i.ultivated potato to loudly
demands.

'could wish that, lookirg • little bound the more
Immediate neorwity arising ibm tho (*duns of tl e
potato, the parsnip had been added to tlio list ol
vegetables t he cill'ivnted sseuh.titntes For it woiiht
be one 'pat ghaei ro from thi nitetoilits
evil if our fehosi-etutdiyinen cou)(4 be broth t back to
the culture of that very utritious end pri,titable root,
Ai to th• profit to be delved from it 1 have been told
of instances of the realatation 4f I:50 and 160 from •
single sore.
It would be well also that the proper cultivation of
Ito cabbage, broceoli, winter prem.., Ito., sluuld be
taught and encouraged, for through it a vast amount
of most nutritious food may be grown for men, for
nettle, and for fowls. And especially at such acrid' as
thhi the keeping of fowls by every class of society ought
by every possible means to be enoonraged. In a
yanirblet entitled "The Mance of 11.(nure as tho Food
if Plant• (to be bad of Ridgway, Fetter and Itsltin, or
Macintosh, Locdon) I have shown how 15 or 20 bebg
oosbniad ou • perch of ground, oan b,. be( t most trill-
ably. The wife if a workicg man might, with ordinary
care, by this means add from 2a, to 4s. • week to the
(aroma of the family.
By the proper cultivation of ashhag(s, Ito., I mean
their cultivation at wide liatances 124 or l'4l in, hes), the
growth of intermediate crot s, which are plsnied before
the removal of the former, and the •ithcattort of
manure to the p'ant inet4 ad if to the soil. In ti is way
I myself have (and *very ohis who has a fair Lnlding
of his gazdea may do the same) lake a heavy sod
healthy crop of potatoes, cauliflowers lb to 18 'Gahm
high, and from this under leaves of which my fowls have
an abundant supply of food, and betwoes the rows I
have • crop of turnips, come of which are almost fis foe
the table. _

After a coop of wheat grown on 240 square feet of
ground, of whledi I should like to give sour modem an
account, I treated the ground in ihe hlowi,g Want. r
(and again I is, that shy working man ulit au allot-
ment on which be out grow corn may do the ssui•):—
I road• holes with. tent rlO ioarti der. v. Dim 1 first
filled with manure in the brio of 'lipid inud, .rd then
pianted borecole and broccoli in them. This was done
while the stubble was still in the ground. As POOP as
the plants were fixed the stubble was dug in, and a
drill of turnips sown between the reversi rows of
plants.

•
Theite Is time yet for this, or something like this, to
be dote throughout the °country. Where the ',tato
hoe been planted in wide drilla, let the horecols, or
cabbages, be planted before the potatote are lifted, or
let %snipe in such • rase be sown. And tl ough I can-
not bore speak flow experience, I am inclined to believe
that awed* turnip', sown even so late as Shia, could
produm • very pod cis p of food for man, both from tbe
Toot in whiter. and, if the toot Oluu:t1 not so be used,
from the turnip greens is he 60A.
Bo musk, Sir, for the present great [comity. That,
however, which most loudly calls for ooLatti, ration Is
the nature of thu terrible potato disease, or rather,
perhaps, the cause of the plant's varying susceptibility
of the virus of the poison, which evidently acts upon
the leaf, and, it may be, the stalk. And on this subject
I am most thankio, to be enabled, from observation*
and experiments posesionally made slaws the date of my
letter to you (Ootober 3, 1871.) on the removal of the
Ont4sO raw" of towns, to throw much light. iodised,
• after • few minute. oonversation this morning with •
very intelligent and scientific blend who for several
yams Ism experimented in vain on many kinds of
potatoes, the admission was fully and oordially made by
hies, "You are right; I see U. You have aseertained,
I am sure, the true cause."
If by your Insertion of this letter you intimate your
esessmi to accept two more,! will first give your readers
SD
etratinnt of its, small crop of wheat above-mentioned.
of a still smaller, but almost more wonderful, crop of
eats, and of the produce of • peek and.a.half of tine
pies from • sowing of SO pees, and in • sucoewitog
leiter my view of the cause of the suseeptibility of the I
disease in the potato pleat, and a remedy or a means of i
prevention of this suseeptibility, which, in funl socord•
IMOD with physiological principles, appears from several
experiments to to. likely to be moat efficacious, and
whist', U the public will enable me to bring it out
without the intervention of a oomp•ny, may be univer•
sally applicable in this and in other eowitries in the
planting of the next year's crop.