The Rural Voice, 1980-05, Page 25Farming in the past
Potatoes
in the
1880's
BY ADRIAN VOS
Just about 135 years ago the potato
blight hit Europe. It is often thought that
only Ireland was hit by the disaster, but
this was not the case. All of Europe and N.
America suffered from "potato rot".
The blight hit the Irish so much harder
than anyone else because Irish agriculture
was completely dominated by the one crop,
the potato. When the.blight.struck there
was nothing to fall back on, and the
by Indians.
In the last hundred years very little has
changed in the growing of potatoes. Even
today, almost every farm has some
potatoes in the vegetable garden, just like
the old-time farm.
A few years before 1880, the Colorado
beetle, or potato beetle, made its
appearance in the fields of North America.
It is interesting to see how man dealt with
insects before the age of pesticides. John
Read. who wrote a book on farming in
result was starvation.
In the rest of Europe a much more
diversified cropping program, while often
improverishing farmers, protected them
from starvation.
Actually, the Irish didn't know how to
grow other crops, so they tried much
longer than their counterparts in other
countries to produce the tubers.
The Dutch, almost immediately, tried
varieties from other parts of the country,
until they found blight resistant ones.
The potato is a member of the night-
shade family of plants, and for that reason
western people were at first very reluctant
to consume the bulb when introduced to it
1880, describes different methods.
. . Some potato growers pick off and
burn the leaves upon which the eggs are
deposited, and gather and destroy, either
by crushing, burning, or scalding, the
larvae and the full-grown bugs."
Read found this too time consuming and
expensive an recommended the
following: " . . . a man takes a pail, or pan,
holds it on one side of a hill and strikes the
vines on the other side with a short stick or
an old broom. In this way most of the bugs
are shaken into the vessel, ad they may be
easily destroyed in either of the ways
mentioned above."
But for the larger growers, a machine
had been developed, pulled by horse or ox,
which shook and gathered the bugs
automatically. The drawback of the
machine was that it didn't work with small
plants, so they may have been eaten before
they were large enough for the bug
gatherer.
John Read didn't want to use poisons and
didthe job by hand for a time. But in the end
the bug got the best of him, and however
reluctant, he had to buy poison. Paris
green was the general choice, a substance
older gardeners will remember, made from
copper acetate and arsenic trioxide.
As can be seen, farmers have always
used insecticides, however reluctantly.
But, as Read remarked, if it isn't poisonous
it won't work.
Potato varieties grown in 1880 included:
Garnet Chili, Early Rose, Alpha, and many
others.
A potato soup recipe from around 1880
reads as follows: Peel and boil eight
medium sized potatoes with a large onion
sliced, some herbs, salt and pepper; press
all through a colander (strainer); then thin
it with rich milk and add a lump of butter,
more seasoning if necessary; let it heat
well and serve hot.
Winthrop
GENERAL STORE
Open Mon. -Sat. till 9:00 P.M.
Grocery & Hardware
Work Boots
- Rubber Boots
CEDAR POSTS
FENCE SUPPLIES
45 Gal. Steel Barrels
-Gas-
DOUG & GAIL SCHROEDER
527-1247
THE RURAL VOICE/MAY HMS MLR