17 MAY 1940, Page 17

The Essential Potato Some very intensive research work on that

essential vegetable the potato has been carried through by some distinguished chemists and biologists. If these discoveries were appreciated by our administrators we might increase the crops by thousands of tons. A few simple administrative regulations would give more food than the ploughing up of hundreds of acres. Yet so little notice has been taken of the researches that some specialists fear a 30 or 40 per cent. reduction in the crop next year. Only very careful selection of seed prevents or limits the wide, the almost universal spread of the eel-worm disease. The disease is spread broadcast through the mud adhering to the potatoes or fallen from them in their containers.