§ Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture whether the attention of the Board has been drawn to the drastic measures being taken by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland with the view of checking the spread of black scab in potatoes, including the compulsory laying down to grass of land proved to be infected with the disease; and whether, in view of the recent increase of this disease in Great Britain, its seriousness and its infectivity, the Board will, in lieu of the recently 1725W issued general Order including this among several other diseases requiring somewhat different treatment, consider the desirability of proclaiming as infected areas all places where black scab has appeared, and prohibiting any potatoes being grown in such places for such period of years as may be deemed sufficient to secure immunity against a recrudescence of the disease?
§ Sir E. STRACHEYThe reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The Board do not think it necessary to adopt in this country the methods which have been adopted by the Irish Department of Agriculture under widely different conditions.