There is no doubt that new or strange sets, if of a
good quality, produce a healthier and a better crop than seed raised on
the same or neighbouring land, but from the general prevalence of the
potato blight, it is very doubtful if there would have been much
advantage in importing seed. An admittedly surer way of producing sound
tubers is to raise them from the actual seed as ripened and perfected on
the stalk in the apples, as the notch berries are commonly called in
Ireland, yet Mr. Niven,[113] an excellent authority--being Curator of
the Botanic Gardens belonging to the Royal Dublin Society, says: "The
seedlings I have had, both of 1845 and 1846, have been equally affected
with the leaf disease, as have been the plants from the tubers; whereas
the seedlings I raised on the experimental ground in the Royal Dublin
Society's Botanic Gardens, in Glasnevin, in 1834, at the time I
instituted my first experiments, were not at all infected with the root
disease then prevalent, but were, without an exception, sound and
perfect as could be desired."
The blight of 1846 was identical with that of 1845, but more rapid and
universal. The leaves of the potato plant were spotted in the same way;
the stalk itself soon became discoloured--not completely, but in rings
or patches; it got cankered through at those places, and would break
short across at them like rotten wood.
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