Potato Culture--Sensibility of the Potato Shaw to Weather
changes--The Carline Thistle--Burns--The true Carduus
Scotticus--The old Dog-Rhyme.
Of no place in existence, perhaps, is the old adage, in its most
literal sense, truer than of Lochaber, that "it never rains but
it pours" [June 1872]. When we last wrote rain was much needed;
no mid-March could be dustier or colder than was our mid-May;
rain, rain was the cry on all hands; the birds, as they alighted
on the branches or flew overhead, cheeped it querulously; the ducks
quacked it energetically; the hens cackled and gaped for it; while
the cattle afield lowed for it in a manner the meaning of which there
was no mistaking; and at last the change of weather, so universally
wished for, came--came first of all in the shape of hail, the dira
grando of Horace, the downright pea-size genuine article, which
left the hills around as white as if, in questionable taste, they
had whitewashed themselves for the season. Hail! fellow, well met,
was the natural and appropriate greeting. Then came sleet, a milder
form of the same visitation, not very pleasant, perhaps, but we were
grateful; then with the wind from the west, soft and pleasant as the
breath of a child, came warm, genial summer rain; the tiniest blade
of grass felt the benign influence, and, in the beautiful language
of oriental imagery, "the mountains and the hills broke forth before
us into singing, and the trees and fields clapped their hands." It
is now mild and beautiful exceedingly, with just enough of rain from
time to time to keep everything fresh and green, and at full stretch
of growth, so that crops of all kinds are everywhere making the most
satisfactory progress; and although the unseasonable hail and intense
cold of ten days ago was very trying to the young potato plants in
exposed situations, we are glad to say that no serious damage has
resulted, the change from cold to milder weather having been very
gradual. The damage in such cases always depends on the suddenness,
or the contrary, of the transition from a low to a high temperature;
a night of frost, followed by a hot sun next day, being most dangerous
to vegetable life, while frost, followed by rain and cloud, and so
on gradually to heat and sunshine again, rarely does any more harm
than merely to give a slight check to what might otherwise prove an
unhealthy rapidity of growth. In the same way it is found that in
the case of animals generally, and in man particularly, it is not the
actual and immediate amount of cold undergone at any time that kills
or maims, but the too sudden transition from a very low temperature
to a comparatively high one. It is probably well enough known to the
reader that very many of our flowers and plants are hygrometric, some
of them very sensitively so. By hygrometric we mean that they spread
out or expand their parts when the sun is bright and the weather is
dry, while they contract or close them on the approach of moisture
and cloud. We would at present draw attention to the fact that the
potato plant, in its earlier stages of growth, is very sensitive in
this respect, more so in some years than in others perhaps, according
as the plants have come up, strong and vigorous and healthy, or the
reverse; for we think our observations during many years warrant us
in saying that the more vigorous and healthier the plant, the more
sensitive will it be found to weather changes--its very sensitiveness
in this respect, observe, helping forward its growth and preserving its
vitality, by enabling it to avail itself of every favourable influence,
just as it enables it to protect itself against such influences as
are unfavourable or adverse. We were particularly struck with this
hygrometric sensitiveness in the potato plant a day or two ago. We
have an early planted field, more forward, perhaps, than anything
else of the kind in the West Highlands, over which we took a friend
who happened to call upon us. It was about mid-day, with a bright,
hot sun overhead, and our friend agreed with us that he had never
seen potatoes that had come up more regularly, or that looked more
healthy and vigorous at the same stage of growth, the fully expanded
plants already showing leaves broad and beautiful as those of a hazel
tree in June. In an hour or two afterwards we had occasion to pass
the same field, and the change in the appearance of the plants was
extraordinary. They seemed to have actually grown a couple of inches
since mid-day, and our friend exclaimed, "Well, your potatoes are
wonderful! look at them now." And we did look, not so much, however,
at the potato field as our friend did; we looked upwards and saw that
clouds were rapidly forming in the west, one black, finger-like stripe
of which had already nearly mounted to the zenith, and looking at that
and at our potato field, we assured our friend that a heavy fall of
rain, with possibly a gale of wind, was at hand. Our companion was
astonished; the sun was yet shining brightly, and the greater part
of the heavens was clear and cloudless; but within little more than
an hour afterwards the rain fell in torrents, and a smart gale from
the south-west was blowing. Our potatoes, however, had foreseen it
all; were sensible of its approach, while our friend and ourselves
thought ourselves in the midst of fine weather that might, perhaps,
last unbroken for days; and what struck our companion as a sudden
and mysterious addition to the height of the plants was merely the
effect of their having gathered themselves together--contracted all
their parts into the least possible compass--thus assuming an upright
pyramidal form, as best enabling them to withstand the assaults of the
approaching storm. Plants of less health and vigour would, according
to our theory, have shown the same sensitiveness in the circumstances,
but in a manner not so immediate, and to a degree less marked and
striking. Our companion of that day, who got a thorough drouking,
as we say in Scotland, on his way home that afternoon, writes us with
some humour that "as he has always had a great regard for potatoes on
the table, both mashed and 'balled,' in their 'jackets,' so in future
will he, in acknowledgment of their infallibility in the matter of
weather changes, view them with respect even in the field." It should
be stated, by the way, that this hygrometrical property in the potato
plant rapidly diminishes in sensitiveness as the haulm increases in
height and strength, as if it felt that when approaching its full
growth it could afford very much to disregard such weather changes
as are incident to the mid-summer season; but the reader who has the
opportunity may verify all we have said upon the subject for himself.
Another plant still more remarkable for hygrometric properties
is the common carline, or carlen thistle, the Carlina vulgaris of
botanists. It is common enough in some districts of Scotland, though
those who do not know it already need not be in the least ambitious of
the honour of its acquaintance, unless indeed from a purely scientific
point of view, for the carline, wherever it appears, is almost always
the infallible sign of a poor soil, miserably farmed. The species
receives its name of Carlina from an old story that Charlemagne
introduced it into Europe on account of some valuable medicinal
qualities attributed to it; its virtues in this respect having been
revealed, it was said, to Carolus Magnus by an angel in a vision of the
night during the prevalence of a deadly plague. Certain preparations
of its roots and leaves were for centuries afterwards held of great
virtue in such internal complaints as demanded violent purgatives for
their removal; and to this day it is, we believe, held in great repute
by herbalists for the cure of vertigo, headache, and other cerebral
diseases. As a weather prognosticator, it is perhaps unequalled by
any other British plant, the sensitiveness of its involucral scales to
the slightest weather changes being so extraordinary as to have from
very early times attracted the attention and aroused the wonderment
of those unacquainted with the fact that similar properties, in a
greater or less degree, are common to all plants and flowers--to the
whole vegetable kingdom indeed. The carline has a stem of some eight
or ten inches in height, and bears many pretty purple flowerets set
in the midst of straw-coloured rays. The carline's sensitiveness
to weather changes continues long after it has been cut or pulled,
provided the heads have not been much hurt or bruised in the process;
on the same principle, we suppose, that some animals are known to
manifest unmistakeable signs of muscular irritability long after they
are otherwise, as we should say, to all intents and purposes dead. We
have generally met with the carline thistle among sickly-growing oats,
on poor, thin soil, and sometimes among other luxuriant weeds in a
neglected potato field. It is amusing, by the way, sometimes to see
bonnet-badges and pictorial representations of what you are supposed to
believe is the Scottish thistle, evidently copied to the life from one
of the carline family! which are but pigmies in stature and absolutely
harmless in the matter of prickliness compared with the grand stately
fellow bristling with prickles strong as darning needles, and sharp
and venomous as the sting of a bee, with "Nemo me impune lacessit" in
the very look of him--the true national emblem! You remember Burns'
reference to it in a very fine stanza that has been often quoted,
that indeed everybody has by heart--
"Even then, a wish (I mind its power)--
A wish that to my latest hour
Shall strongly heave my breast--
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake
Some usefu' plan or book could make,
Or sing a sang at least.
The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide
Amang the bearded bear,
I turn'd the weeder-clips aside,
And spared the symbol dear:
No nation, no station,
My envy e'er could raise;
A Scot still, but blot still,
I knew nae higher praise."
--(Epistle to the Guidwife of Wauchope House.)
The true Carduus Scotticus is not fond of cultivated land, but is
a tremendous fellow when he gets hold of a waste outlying corner to
himself, sometimes attaining a height of four or five, or even six
feet, with a stem as thick as your wrist, and prickles--no, spikes
is the word--with spikes, then, as formidable as the bayonets of a
kilted regiment going into action.
An anonymous lady correspondent in London sent us a manuscript sheet of
paper of the last century, containing a very old dog-rhyme. "The paper
has been in our family as long as I can remember, and I have heard my
grandfather repeat the lines often before we left the Highlands fifty
years ago. The Ronald Mac Ronald Vic John mentioned in the rhyme was,
I believe, one of the Glencoe family, a celebrated hunter of deer
in his day. He was killed, as I have heard my grandfather relate,
at the battle of Philiphaugh. It was the fairy dog-rhyme in one of
your recent letters that brought to my mind that such a thing was in
my possession." Owing to the faded state of the writing, and a very
peculiar orthography, we had some difficulty in deciphering the lines;
but, modernising the spelling a little, the following we believe to
be an accurate transcript:--
An cù 'bh'aig Raonull-mac-Raonuil-'ic-Iain,
Bheiradh e sithionn a beinn:
Ceann leathan eadar 'dha shuil, ach biorach 's bus dubh air
gu shroin.
Uchd gearrain, seang-leasrach; 's bha fhionnadh
Mar fhrioghan tuirc nimheil nan còs.
Donn mar àirneag bha shuil; speir luthannach lùbta,
'S faobhar a chnamh mar ghein.
An cù sud 'bh'aig Raonull-mac-Raonuil-'ic-Iain,
'S tric thug e sithionn a beinn.
Which, rendered as literally as possible, many stand thus in English--
Ronald-son of Ronald-son of John's good dog,
He could bring venison from the mountain.
He was broad between the eyes; otherwise sharp and black-muzzled
to the tip of his nose.
With a horse-like chest, he was small flanked, and his pile
Was like the bristles of the den frequenting boar.
Brown as a sole was his eye;
Supple-jointed (was he), with houghs bent as a bow;
All his bones felt sharp and hard as the edge of a wedge.
Such was Ranald Mac Ranald vic John's good dog,
That often brought venison from the mountain.