Principles and observations on many and various subjects, for the health of nations and individuals / by John Moodie.

  • Moodie, John
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles and observations on many and various subjects, for the health of nations and individuals / by John Moodie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    after they are put in again. If it should be wet or cold, the skin round the whole of the potato keeps it warm and preserves it. From the produce of these you can, by again keeping them care- fully until next season, cut them in pieces and plant them, and they will be the same as a new and healthy race or breed, and will be healthy if the weather has been favourable. In the same way, and for the same reason, potatoes that have failed, and part of them that have been diseased, if the diseased ones are planted whole next season, if the weather is favourable, will grow and be healthy, as they have and require all their nourishment, which they have not when cut, and if it should rain or be cold at planting time, the skin will preserve them from it. This is the reason why some potatoes which were not lifted the season before last, but were allowed to remain in the ground, fructified next season, and had good crops, the winter being open, dry, and mild; but those which were taken up and housed, and cut and planted next season (the same season as the above, we may say the same diseased potatoes), they entirely failed, while there was a good crop of the whole potatoes. To have an entirely new race, the pollen of one kind may be put on the flower of another, and the apples thus produced will give a new and improved seed, which may be planted like the other apple seed, and will bear a potato quite healthy and free from all dis- ease. A potato may become diseased by being too often planted on the same soil. To remedy this, a change of seed from a northern and hardy district will in most cases be found^to answer very well, as lately there was not so much failure and disease in the north. Draining for For we* we would recommend draining, more especially in Ire- Potatoes and land, where it is not so much in use. The potatoes will be very other pur- liable to failure and disease there, as they do not change their seed poses. there, at least often enough, in which case, if not diseased, the po- tates are very small and very few at a plant. In damp and wet soils and climates, and where there is much rain, we would recom- mend the deep draining of Mr Smith. In dry soils, we would not recommend deep draining, as the moisture by draining in dry, light soils, soon evaporates, also that part of it which is below or underneath the drains, and most is carried off by the drains before the wet gets below ; but in deep, damp, retentive soils, evaporation goes on slowly, when there is much rain and wet it sinks deep and remains long in the ground, and it is therefore requisite to drain deep in such cases, to get the moisture that is deep seated into the drains (in such a soil there ought to be small superficial drains besides, otherwise all the wet is not taken into the drains, but sinks into the ground, and afterwards evaporates), as the drains, if they were not deep, would only receive the surface water, and in reten- tive soils the moisture, when it once gets in, sinks deeply and eva- porates slowly, and keeps the soil cold. The drains should not be so near as to take up all the moisture in dry soils, otherwise, if the sea- son should be dry, the ground would be dried up, from draining and from surface evaporation, and will thus leave the ground parched. Since draining has been introduced, we will require more rain in dry seasons, and for dry light soils than we used to do ; as, before,
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