Whence came this
pollen collected on the upper glass? Probably from Holland or Denmark.
Possibly from some point nearer the center of Europe.
POTATO DISEASE.
A study of the terrible disease which so often attacks the potato crop in
this country will serve, I think, to bring forcibly before you certain
untoward conditions which may be called climatic, and which are
attributable to fungoid spores in the air.
With the potato disease you are all, probably, more or less practically
acquainted. When summer is at its height, and when the gardeners and
farmers are all looking anxiously to the progress of their crops, how
often have we heard the congratulatory remark of "How well and strong
those potatoes look!" Such a remark is most common at the end of July or
the beginning of August, when the green part, or haulm, of the plant is
looking its best, and when the rows of potatoes, with their elegant rich
foliage and bunches of blossom, have an appearance which would almost
merit their admission to the flower border. The same evening, it may be,
there comes a prolonged thunder storm, followed by a period of hot,
close, moist, muggy weather. Four-and-twenty hours later, the hapless
gardener notices that certain of his potato plants have dark spots upon
some of their leaves. This, he knows too well, is the "plague spot," and
if he examine his plants carefully, he will perhaps find that there is
scarcely a plant which is not spotted.
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