Scientific Serials

Abstract

THE Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Second Series, No. xxii.—The contents of this number are most attractive. To science is assigned the leading place in the arrangement. The first paper is devoted to the Colorado potato-beetle, and is from the pen of Mr. Bates, F.L.S., who does not profess to impart any original information, and who is unable to come to any definite conclusion as to the probability of its appearing in these countries. The paper is calculated to confuse rather than to enlighten us on this point. For while In one place the author goes to show that the possibility of living specimens arriving here cannot be doubted, ha observes elsewhere that the analogies of the case supply ground for confidently believing that there is exceedingly little probability of their propagating and spreading in this country. We are also told that “the creature has developed extraordinary flexibility of constitution and habits since it left its quiet home in the Rocky Mountains, and that we cannot be quite sure what it will eventually do.” In another passage Mr. Bates says:- “The potato-beetle is no insidious enemy, like the majority of insect plagues, but meets the farmer in open fair fight.” What does he mean by a fair fight between an insect which destroys whole fields and districts, and the helpless farmer?—Mr. Carruthers, F.R.S., consulting botanist to the Society, contributes a paper and a note on the potato disease. In the “paper” he reports on what he calls the results of the competition for the prizes offered through the Society in 1874 for potatoes which would resist the disease for three years in succession. The “note” gives a brief account of Mr. Worthington Smith's discovery of the resting spore of the potato fungus. The paper must have been written before the discovery. The truth is the discovery throws a curious shadow not only on the paper but on the course pursued by the society in connection with the whole subject. We were not quite prepared to find that the consulting botanist of this great society would be permitted to announce, as he has done in this paper, that in investigating this disease we must summarily dismiss the soil from our consideration. “Neither soil, nor methods of cultivation,” we are told, “exercise any influence on the prevalence of the disease.” For the present we can only say these statements are as unsound as they are astounding. The Journal contains a long paper on laying down land to permanent pasture, which is a joint production. The bulk of the information is given second-hand; that is to say, on information furnished by several agriculturists, a long paper is based by the joint authors. The number contains too much matter of this character. The views of an American naturalist on the Colorado potato-beetle are given in a paper by Mr. Bates. Mr. Carruthers seeks to enlighten us on the potato disease by information collected from various sources; and a number of scattered facts on one of the most important of agricultural subjects—the profitableness of pasture as compared with arable land—are grouped and reviewed in a great variety of ways, some of which are calculated rather to mislead than to enlighten the reader. There are several passages in the paper which will produce the impression that the gentleman to whom has been assigned the chief part of the joint authorship is not intimately acquainted with agriculture as at present practised. We take one passage as an illustration: “There are many persons so enamoured of a special rotation—say the four-course—that to extend the period of artificial grass to two years appears to them a violation of all the true principles of scientific farming. The four-course is their ideal of modern farming. A course of cropping which has been proved highly beneficial on some of our most famous corn-growing districts is supposed to be the only legitimate system to be pursued by intelligent farmers elsewhere.” Who are the persons referred to? It may be well to remind the gentleman who wrote this paper that English farmers are calling out for more freedom of action in the cropping of their land, and that for several years past vast numbers of them have been doing that which he would appear to have discovered in 1875. We cannot at present make room for further criticism on this paper; and we are glad to be able to state that the number contains several meritorious articles.