Suggested Remedy for Potato Blight

Southland Times, Issue 19553, 6 May 1905, Page 4 (Supplement)

Suggested Remedy for Potato Blight

A remedy for the potato blight, which is causing so much loss in New Zealand, is suggested by Mr Jones, a settler in , the Poverty Bay district. Mr Jones, speaking to a reporter of the Poverty Bay Herald, said he had much experience of tho potato blight in England many years' ago. It used to come every season, he said, with the thunder shomers, ■ black spots developing on the leaf, which quickly spread to the stalk, and foence to the potatoes. Mr .Tones' remedy was to cut off'the stalks—or haUlms, as he calls them—with a reap hook before tho disease got down to the ground. It was necessary to remove tho stalks after they were cut, otherwise the fungoid growth would get Into the ground and reach the potato, asid he used to feed them to cattle. Mr Jones said he used to invariably savo his crops by this means, and he is confident New Zealand farmers can do the same, Ho told bls neighbours of his remedy, and when ho visited England last year, after an absence of a quarter of a century, some of them specially thanked him for his advice, which they had found lof great value in saving their potatoes. Tho blight usually appears when the potatoes,are three-parts grown and Mr Jones found it safe to leave the tubers in the field to mature, provided ail tho leaves and stalks with their badness were removed. Mr Jones confirms the opinion that the disease is atmospheric in its origin, and is a sort of mildew or fungus which spreads with great rapidity- He has a touch of it in his potatoes at Ormond, and is using the means above stated to save his crop.