Note 112 — Chapter V

Mayne on the Potato Failure. The potato crop, for the most part, continued to look well up to the end of July, but the blight had appeared, in the most decided way, during the first half of that month, although not then very apparent to a casual observer. Mr. Mayne, like many persons at the time, attributed the blight to an insect which some called Aphis Vastator, others Thrips minutissima. There was a glass case in the Dublin Exhibition of 1853, showing this insect feeding on the leaves and stalks of the potato plant. Mr. Mayne and those who agreed with him, seem, in this instance, to have mistaken cause for effect. Indeed the insect, it would appear, was a natural parasite of the potato, and some observers have gone so far as to assert that the Aphis Vastator abounded more on healthy plants than upon those affected with the blight.