The Sun.
London, England, 1847-04-02 00:00:00

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ON THE MEANS OF ESCAPING
THE RAVAGES OF THE POTATO DISEASE.
(Translated from the German.)
(From the IVorcestershire Chronicle.)
This method was discovered by M. Zander, of Boit-
zenberg, and he has tried it for six years with the
greatest success. The following extracts are made from
his published letter:—
" For many years a kind of dry rot and pock-mark
has been observed amongst potatoes, in consequence of
which many of them were quite unfit for food; this sug-
gested to me the idea of obtaining them from seed, and
I directed my efforts to the procuring of fully-grown
potatoes in one year, in which I have succeeded. The
raising of potatoes from seed is nothing new—the
attempt has often been made, but it required three, four,
or five years before they came to perfection.
"I first raised potatoes from seed six years ago. I
sowed an eighth of an ounce, and obtained nearly seven
sacks of fully-grown perfectly sound potatoes, although
in the same year almost all the potatoes in my neigh-
bourhood were affected by pock-mark and dry-rot.
pv iin.
" I have regularly raised potatoes from seed ever
attained
ttht
ce e greatests
Nvhieh Ivirulence
had
re
since, and they have remained sourd during the whole
time, and last year (1843), when the disease had spread
ously raised from seed, as well as those of the preced-
ing year, continued perfectly exempt from disease. I
have also given potatoes raised from seed to rby friends
and acquaintances, and these have also remained per-
this over
neighbourhood, Europe, and
those
pa
fectly free from the universally prevailing disease. The
Minister of the Interior took notice of my proceedings
and sent two officers to investigate on the spot the facts
I had communicated to the Government respecting my
potatoes. These officers were present when I caused
some potatoes to be dug out, which I had raised from
seed the year before, and amongst them was a plant
which produced 280 potatoes ; many stems produced
from 100 to 130 ; the smallest produce from one plant
was half a metz.,* and the majority of the plants pro-
duced from one to one and a half metze. Potatoes
raisesi from seed tire very mealy, and have a peculiarly
pleasant and fine flavour ; they produce a richer crop
in the second year, and it increases in the third ; there
is then no further increase, and they have attained their
greatest perfection.
" From an ounce of seed you may raise upwards of
fifty sacks of potatoes; the smallest crop I ever had
from half an ounce was twenty-four sacks. You will
find the following description of the manner of raising
potatoes from seed more complete than that which the
Government has published, for in that everything is
given too superficially.
" My views of the potato disease, which has spread
so universally for some years, are as follow:—With all
plants, propagation by seed is most in accordance with
nature. We have propagated the potato for a century
in a mode that is unnatural, and in a climate which is
cold and foreign to it. This has now caused a complete
degeneracy—in one word, our potatoes have become
weakened and degenerated by a long-continued and un-
natural mode of propagation, and they cannot, during
their growth, bear any sudden change of temperature,
drought, or moisture, and I have the firm conviction
that the potato diseases which have now prevailed for
some years, such as pock-marks and dry rot, and the
disease of last year, which was formerly unknown, was
caused amongst our weak and degenerate potatoes by
sudden changes of temperature. A weak and nervous
individual is very sensible of every change of weather
or temperature, and so it has been for some years with
potatoes, which have been weakened by an unnatural
mode of propagation. I am in possession of the strongest
proofs that vt e can only again raise healthy and strong
potatoes from seed. 'The potatoes which I have raised
from seed the last six years have been free from the
prevailing diseases, and surpass in quality all the old sorts.
"The potato seed is saved in the following manner :
The berries should be gathered in autumn before the
frost sets in, and be preserved in a dry place, where frost
cannot reach them, until the end of January or the be-
ginning of February. They are then to be broken by
the hand, and placed in a tub or other vessel, where they
must remain six or eight days to ferment a little ; then
water is to be thrown on them, and well stirred, in order
to separate the pulp and husks from the seed, which
should then be cleansed and dried, and kept in a warm
room until sown.
" As the potato is a native of a tropical climate, it is
impossible that it can form and produce perfect seed in
the open air in our cold climate. It is therefore of the
greatest importance that the berries should be perfectly
healthy ; be gathered before the frost sets in, and be
kept in a dry place where frost cannot approach them,
in order that they may ripen and perfect the seeds. If
the berries are collected and preserved as I have directed
they will be as fair and fresh at the end of January or
beginning of February as they were when gathered from
the plant, and the seed as large again as that which was
taken at once from the berries at autumn ; the latter is
very light and imperfect, and only a very small portion
of it is capable of growing ; imperfect seed only pro-
duces weak plants, and a weak plant bears but little
fruit, and that is imperfect.
" Formerly the great mistake was made of sowing un-
ripe and imperfect potato seed ; as a consequence it
required three or four years before a tolerably large po-
tato was obtained. This was the cause which deterred
many persons from cultivating potatoes from seed, but
this difficulty I have now, thank God, overcome.
" At the end of March or beginning of April the po-
tato seed should be sown in a hot-bed, the grains being
sown a quarter of an inch asunder. If there are no
sashes to put over the bed, it should be covered at night
and in cold weather by mats or boards, as the young
plants are very sensitive to frost. It is very important
that the seed should be sown on a hot bed made of horse
dung, as it sprouts with difficulty, and requires artificial
heat to make it early productive in our climate. If the
seed is sown in a cold bed it remains until the middle of
May before it comes up, and the crop will be retarded and
diminished ; but if it is sown as I have pointed out,
there will be fine large plants by the middle of May,
which may be planted out in the field. Until the plants
are put out, the soil in which they were sown must be
kept moderately moist, and when thsy are put out they
must he freely watered if the weather be dry.
"If the potato plants have advanced so far by the
middle or end of May as to have attained the height of
four inches, they may be planted out in a loose rich soil
at about the same distance from one another as potatoes
are usually planted, and this is best done on a cloudy
day, or immediately after rain. It is of importance that
they should be put down into the earth two inches
lower than they stood in the seed bed; this will cause
them to form fresh roots which produce the most nume-
rous and best tubers.
"If the plants have not produced tubers, they may be
left until they have attained a height of five or six inches,
and may be planted three inches deeper in the ground
than they stood in the seed bed; they will thus produce
more roots; but care must be taken that the young
plants do not produce tubers while they remain in the
seed bed, and they should be often examined lest they
sl-oald do so, as they will be very much weakened if al-
lowed to fo-rn tubers before they are put out.
"The earthing up of the potatoes raised from seed
should be done early, and not too much; for if the plants
are put out in weather which is not very unfavourable,
they soon begin to shoot up, and the entire soil is pene-
trated by very small fine fibres, which would be injured
by a high or late earthing up, the production of tubers
be delayed fur a fortnight or three weeks, and the pro-
duce diminished. I must remark that the potato plants
thrive best in a rich sandy soil which has been deeply
du.
g"

PRICE SD.

The foregoing extracts contain two most important
statements, and, if they should be confirmed by general
experience, there is no estimating their importance. Ono
is, that it is possible to raise an abundance of fully-grown
potatoes from seed in one season ; and the other, that
such potatoes will resist the generally prevailing disease
for six years at least. I had an opportunity of testing
the first proposition last summer, and can testify to its
literal accuracy. I am promised a detailed account of
the result of the experiment, the institution of which I
witnessed, but it will require many and varied trials be-
fore the second proposition can be considered as
oraised directs,in
esta-
blished i in the meantime it seems highly probable that
M. Zander's statement is correct, and one would natu-
rallyaseltdhy from
than seed,th as
those
he
would
be expemctortheahtardyand potatoes raised
any other way.
1 had the pleasure- of spending last June at the baths
of Itippoldzau, in the Black Forest, and my first informa-
tion was derived from M. Goringer, the owner of the
baths, and of much surrounding property. He heard of
the plan only on the preceding month, and lost no time
in procuring and sowing some seed in a hot-bed ;it was
sown on the 9th of May ; on the 9th of June the frame
was removed in order to harden the plants, and on the
19th of June some fifty or sixty, of about four inches
high, were planted out in my presence. I left on the
4th of July, and the plants were growing vigorously and
promising well ; the single leaves of many were then
larger than the plants themselves were fourteen days
before, when they were planted out. M. Goringer has
promised to send me a detailed and accurate report of
the result, and also some other interesting experiments
on the cultivation of potatoes, which he has instituted.
On the 12th of August I was at Brukenau, in Bavaria,
and having heard that the gardener o 1 Baron von
Thungen (who resided at Zeitlofs, about five miles off )
had raised potatoes from seed this year, I went to see
them. The gardener showed me several rows of fine
promising potatoes, which he informed me he had raised
from four potato apples in the manner • d
pointed out; by
M. Zander, whoso letter he had seen in a newspaper.
The seed was sown in March, in a hot-bed,
and the
plants were put out in May; the soil was very dry and
hard, as the season had been very and very little
rain had fallen for two months; they had never been
watered, nor had any particular care been taken of them,
but I never saw finer looking tops; they were fresh and
full of sap,;while many in the neighbourhood were droop-
ing and withering.
The potato crop was late in that part of the country,
and it was only within the last preceding three weeks
that we had new potatoes at the table d'hôte at his-
sengen.
At my request the gardener examined one or two
stools, and broke off a few of the potatoes under them,
which he gave me. The ground was full of small tubers,
which a few days' rain would swell into an extraordi-
nary crop; each plant seemed to rest on a little heap of
potatoes. The specimens he gave me were larger and
finer than any we had hitherto had at the table
ifhote; they were clean-skinned and hard, though of
course not fully grown or ripe. I was quite convinced
that M. Zander's statement as to the crop was correct.
I measured a few of the specimens ; one was 54 in. and
5 in. in circumference; three others measured 5 in. by
41 in. It is to be recollected that this was on the 12th
of August, and that these were by no means specimens
of what the crop would be when come to maturity.
I should mention that M. Giiiinger published the fore-
going letter as a pamphlet for distribution at his own ex-
pense and that I have omitted some passages which E
did not think would be of importance in this country
WILLIAM HOGAN.
* The wetze bolds 3ilbs. of potsoo.