The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1873-03-01
The Potato Disease.


Express writes:
Some century ago the potato was
scarcely grown as vegetable, much
less as food for the poor in fact, ii
was generally condemned on its first
introduction, even as a vegetable; and
as recently as the early part of this cen
tuty, Goblet wrote: 1t has long been
established, by evidence taken before
committees Of the House of Commons,
that to raise potatoes for the purpose
OF being used instead of bread is a
thing mischievous to the nation" The
departure from this recommendation
is the potato disease. This departure
arose as follows : Previous to the long
continental war which closed the last
century, and occupied many years of
the present one, the wages of the
agricultural laboror were regulated by
the price of wheat; hence the assize
of bread, But a wicked Cor, as some
say, glorious) war, which destroyed the
labOrer and enriched the landowner,
raised the price of wheat without giving
a corresponding increase III the rate
of wages. Thus, when the poor
man brought home his miserable
pittance to his wife on Satur-
lay night-wages wholly inadequate
Gas war prices advanced) to the pur-
chase of foOd-tirSt the ever scauty
portion of animal food fell off, then
followed an insufliciency of bread and,
with the poor worlan's dissatisfaction
at her husband getting no in
crease of wages propOrtionate to
the rise III the price of her
loaf, they were driven to resort
to the wholesale growing of potatoes
as a miserable substance for bread.
To such an extent was this followed
land owners and farmers approving,
because it checked advancing wages
Parliament disappearing, according to
Cobbett, but without checking the vi
| clous system even to the present day
that the result was the practice, by al
most every cottager, of continually
growing potatoes on his little plot of
garden ground, this plot being, in
some few instances, slightly extended
| 10y the addition of a small allotment,
which the employers Of labor encour-
aged, because less wages was needed
TO supply the family with potatoes than
to purchase bread. In this manner,
| the soil having no rest, tired out and
potato tainted, became exhausted of
those properties which alone gave nu-
triton, or, IN other words, of the nee
essary life power for the emergency
of unfavorably seasons. Here then
is, in my opinion, the sole cause Of
potato disease ; and, although the
potato may be classed as an agreeable
| Though not nutritive) table vegetable,
| L do not hesitate to say that all potato
es are more or less diseased; SO that if
| you take the finest tuberS grown, pro
nounced, after the most careful obser-
| Walton, to be sound and free from dis
ease, and dig up an acre of land in the
middle of Hyde park, where potatoes
never grew before, you will still get
diseased produce, evidencing the
presence of disease IN the seed sown
Even saving the seed of the potato
itself is no guarantee, for like seed,
like fruit How can you have healthy
offspring from diseased parents? Thus
| L still feel bound to conclude. with
Cobbett, that 1T is our duty to dis
countenance the growth of potatoes as
ga thing mischievous to the nation. -
| On the contrary, If this vegetable is to
| be grown free from disease, we must
again obtain our seed from plants in
| digenous to the western world. and
| before we plant then in our gardens
and allotments, the land must be freed
| from the potato faint by disiDfecuion,
and perhaps by years of rest, to enable
| it to regain its potash, lime and other
elements, and after that the rule should
be never to grow potatoes upon the
same land two years in succession.
| As an argument also against the too
free use of potatoes as a substitute for
bread, is it not, to Il great extent, the
question now at issue with the aericul-
tural laborer2 If the laborer, going
to his labor with the break of day and
toiling until Iightfali. does not receive
(and his wife and children tool suffi-
cient food during the day, or if that
| food does not contain sufficient nour-
| ishment, together with the nights rest
which follows, to recoup him for the
eS haustion, does not he rise a weaker
and worn down man, and does not his
employer obtain day by day less labor,
until at last his strength fails him and
the ratepayer has to support him in
| his dotage. And, slightly varying the
beautiful language of the poet laureate
in his last poem, it may be said
Beside the earth
''He lies like dog, all but smouldered out
| still warm corpse, and yet unburlable.'
|