Handbook of Fungus Diseases of the Potato in Australia and their Treatment by D. McAlpine.

Handbook of Fungus Diseases of the Potato in Australia and their Treatment by D. McAlpine. Hardcover book published 1911.

Winter is fast approaching and one thing that concerns me about winter is that it’s often the time of year for catching some nasty colds and flu’s.  But looking at this book I’m beginning to realize how lucky I am that I’m not a potato (some may disagree) as there are a lot of particularly nasty diseases that a potato can get.  There’s: Early blight or Leaf Spot, Rhizoctonia Rot, Potato Scab, Dry Rot and Brown Ring, Wet Rot or Brown Rot, Black Leg or Black Stalk Rot, Black Dot Disease, Sclerotium Disease, Stringy Rot and Brown Fleck or Internal Brown Spot… and that is just the fungus diseases.  After 100 years and modern scientific breakthroughs in the ability to diagnose potato illness (there must be a book on the history of potato disease research… and if there isn’t, there should be), I’m pretty sure there are even more diseases of the Potato than are listed in this book.

There are some great black and white photographs and a few colour photographs as well.  Unfortunately they are all a bit tricky to scan as the binding doesn’t open flat, so I have taken some dodgy photographs to give you an idea of what this book is all about.

It isn’t in great condition… but neither would I be after 100 years.  There’s even some insect damage to the cover and fortunately there is no fungus and no chips to the cover… to be honest the book is looking a little bit worn and aged.  But it does have great content… provided you’ve got an eye for that sort of thing.  The big question is will someone buy it without having the book in hand to peruse the wonderful photographs, or would it sell better from a shelf in a shop.  Even though I’ve just listed this book on ebay, I think it would sell better from a shelf.  So your probably wondering why list it on ebay… because!!!