The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, October 1884, No. 1Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Science
The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, October 1884, No. 1
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
The potato has met with some serious enemies. The worst pest of late
years is the Colorado beetle. This is now so wide spread and well known
that a description is unnecessary. The remedies are numerous, but Paris
green and London purple are the most effective. These arsenical compounds
are applied in both the dry state and mixed with water. The latter is
generally considered the better method. A teaspoonful of either the
“green” or “purple” is stirred in a watering-pot and applied to the
infested foliage through a fine nozzle. This voracious beetle has a
natural enemy in the shape of a mite that sometimes occurs so abundantly
as to completely cover the victim. Other insect enemies are the stalk
borer and the large potato worm. Burn the vines infested with the former,
and pinch off and crush the latter.
The wet rot, so destructive some seasons, is caused by a minute parasitic
fungus which grows within the substance of the potato leaves and stems,
and afterward descends to the tubers and causes them to decay. Wet and
hot weather are particularly favorable for the development of this
mould. Nothing has been successfully used to stay its ravages. This rot
has swept over Europe, Great Britain and Ireland, at different times,
bringing great distress to all the inhabitants, but especially to the
lower classes, whose daily food is made up largely of the potato. The
tubers should be dug so soon as the fungus is found to have “struck” the
foliage. In this way they may be removed before the rot has invaded them.
Store the potatoes in a dry and uniformly cool place. As the rot does not
come until midsummer, it is best to plant quick maturing varieties, and
plant these early. In this way some of the insect enemies may also be
avoided. Take it altogether, the potato is an easy and profitable crop to
raise.
METHODS OF COOKING THE POTATO.
BY MRS. EMMA P. EWING.
There are only seven distinct methods of cooking potatoes, namely:
roasting, baking, boiling, steaming, stewing, frying, and broiling. But
the culinary possibilities of this simple esculent are so illimitable it
can be served in about as many different ways as there are days in the
year, and be acceptable in all of them, if properly done; for no member
of the vegetable kingdom returns a richer reward for the care bestowed
upon it than the potato.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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