The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-15 00:00:00

THE POTA TOE EPIDEMIC.

We are afraid (says the Manchester Guardian)
that as regards a very large tract in potatoe cul-
ture in this part of the kingdom the disease this
year will be found to be as fatal in its ravages as
in almost any year. Indeed many of the growers
compare the state of their potatoes at the present
moment with what they remember of the year
1846, and pronounce them as bad, if not worse,
than in that year. From an intelligent culti-
vator, who has personally examined the crops and in-
quired of the largest growers in the tract of North
Cheshire, extending from Sale and its vicinity over
the townships of Ashton-on-Mersey, Carrington,
Partington' Warburton, and Lymm, we derive the
following facts :—The statement of a considerable
farmer at Lymm is that those potatoes which he has
got up are rotting fast, and those growing emit
that peculiar baesmell, especially at night, which
is characteristic of the disease. .one of the
largest • farmers in the neighbourhood of War-
burton states that his potatoes are now in a
worse condition than he has ever known
them since the great year of the disease (1846), and
his anticipations are that before the winter is over,
from the general failure of the crop potatoes will be
a guinea a load. At Partington, a considerable
grower says he never saw potatoes in a worse condi-
tion. even in " the bad year" (1846). The two kinds
which have up to this time proved the best and
soundest are the flukes and Pollitt's seedlings ; but
even of these on the average about one-third
is bad. At Carrington one farmer states that
fully half his potatoes are rotten. Of the kinds
named,;Lady Greys and radicals, he does not ex-
pect to save many. He corroborates what has been
already stated as to the better condition of flukes
and Pollitt's seedlings, and the proportion in which
they are diseased. Another farmer in that neigh-
bourhood says that his Lady Greys, radicals, and
pink eyes, are more than half diseased ; his flukes
and Pollitt's seedlings are bad in a much smaller
proportion. A third farmer in Carrington, on Fri•
day last, opened the pots in which he had stored,
af
find
frnodr tt nhi
winterrgehe tul
loads
pea r,
deas
oidof ust
00 luyhni, 4 .
nd
poootrrat
ti 1065:
sal
in
niaodtnsh
heo
ef
wephoo
uot
whole.
A ts
A sentfo uar t
mh
anto farmera in this township,
i gupsoin eseed on
p potatoes
t 0 Thursdayes; last,
and after
digging all day the man could only get as many
sound ones as 'he could put in a sack and carry home
on his back. Another considerable grower on Sa-
turday last opened a pot in -which 50 or 60 loads of
pink eyes hadbeen stored a fortnight before for seed
next year, and only 21 or 22 loads proved sound,
the rest had gone into a brown rot, a more advanced
stage of which is that the tuber is covered with
raised white pocks, and then putrefaction ensues.
In Ashton-on-Mersey last week a farmer dug up a
field of potatoes of the sort called Protestants, and
found more than half of them diseased. His flukes
were better, probably not more than one-third being
diseased. In one field at Sale, of a crop of radicals,
fully one-half were gone. It will be seen by this
evidence, collected on the spot, that the present
potato crop is affected with the disease to a very
large extent over the surface of country indicated;
that the sorts which have suffered most from the
ravages of the epidemic are Lady Greys, pink eyes,
radicals, or white radicals, snowballs (which though
not mentioned above, suffer in the proportion of
about one-half), and Protestants. Hitherto flukes
and Pollitt's seedlings have escaped with less injury;
but as these are later sorts, fears are entertained
that as winter advances they too will suffer in
larger proportion.

-----
GEOLOGY OF NEW ZEALAND.—The Government
of New Zealand have caused to be printed in their Gazette
the lecture on the geology of the province of Auckland, by
Dr. Hochstetter, geologist, on board the Austrian frigate
Novara, and member of the scientific expedition. of that
vessel.