Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1867-10-31
farmers Department.
From the New York Observer.
How 20 save the Potato.

nj. Almighty has established Ger
1sws by which animal and vege
tshle life are perpetuated, and al
.honph man may, for a time, violate
these laws with benefit to himself
ultimate destruction ensues. Lool
at the potato as it comes from the
hand of its Maker, rank weed, bear
inp a few tubers of no value to man
but plenty of blossoms, plenty Of
seed, sowing itself and perpetuatine
its kin5 ad infnitwm and in infinite
variety. Man steps in now and
modifes the original law; he ignores
the seed, the true life, but selects a
suber and plants It instead, tenderly
cares for it, stimulates an abnormal
growth, increasing its size and i'm
proving its edible qualities, and calls
it one of the bestgifts ofProvidence;
But the potato now lives an individual
life. not from generation to genera
ton" (like wheat reproducing itself
according to its primal law, and as
an individual, must succumb like
man to the inevitable feebleness ot
age. 1t can now hardly raise its own
seed. Its sap vessels are weakened;
q hot sun after a moist day, the most
stimulating weather for growth,
causes such arushing circulation that
the almost decayed arteries burst
under the pressure, and blight and
destruction ensues, just as the same
causes produce rust in wheat. 1t is
probable also, that this gradual de-
cay has produced a change in the
fluids of the plant, rendering them
less rank, than in its vigorous con-
dition, and more inviting to the in
sects now preying upon it. It is
evident that death is coming over the
whole species, and in few years IT
will be utterly extinct, in spite of
the so-called remedies suggested by
fumbling among second causes, in
stead of digging down to the great
underlying laws of God in nature.
There are two remedies. One is
to go back to the original stock IN
touched by the hand of man and re-
peat the first process. If this is not
possible, then plant the seed of the
present potato; in two years you
have new seed one remove from a
rotten potato; then plant from this
seed, ignoring the previous, and in
two years more you are taOo removes
from the rotten potato, and so con-
tinue Thus in every series You are
recedlng from the artificial and ap-
preaching the natural life ofthe plant,
and I suppose that in ten removes or
twenty years, you may be near
enough to the original to begin to
make selections and bring them up
again into an eatable condition; rails
ing them from the tubers. Now
where will you find the young man
patriotic and persistent enough to do
this thing? Who would venture to
run the risk of being sent to a lunatic
asylum by talking in Congress about
potatoes?-when every one there is
in President-making and in
getting up petty schemes of personal
aggrandizement. Unless the Bureau
of Agriculture is forced to give atten-
ton to it, flor there can be no money
made out of it for great while J, we
shall have to find something else be.
fore many years to put into the po-
tato pot.
Apples, peaches, pears, grapes,
and all vegetable life grated or bud
ded, or in any way propagated in an
method, are all slowly pay
ing the penalty for the violation of
this same law of "euery thing from the
seed" and before many generations
pass away, they will all follow the
potato to the grave.