140 Mr. E. J. QuEKETT'syMr///er Observations 



have given rise to an occurrence happening so abundantly, which is undoubt- 

 edly of great rarity in this country in the ordinary course of events. Had the 

 cause of the ergot been external, it is singular that as the wheat, barley and 

 rye were growing side by side, the two former should have escaped being dis- 

 eased and not the latter. 



The absence of grains in most of the ears of the rye, even when no ergot 

 was present, indicates that though the plants arrived at maturity, some cause 

 must have so interfered with their usual habits as to suppress the development 

 of the grain. 



The inference that I conceive may be fairly drawn from these experiments 

 is, that these ergots have been artificially produced by the process detailed; 

 and it would appear most reasonable (even before the results of these experi- 

 ments were known) to imagine that it must be so ; for every ergot, on what- 

 ever grass it may be produced, is covered externally with a coating composed 

 of the sporidia of a minute fungus, and these sporidia appear to be the same 

 on all ergots. The inference necessarily follows, that they must be connected 

 with its origin. 



It cannot be imagined that every ergot when arrived at maturity ac- 

 quires its coating of the fungus from external sources : if so, ergots unac- 

 companied with the fungus ought sometimes to be found, which never have 

 been, if the examination has been made while they retain their position in 

 the ear ; and besides, the young ergot possesses it even before the flowers 

 expand. 



Shortly after expressing opinions similar to these, which were published in 

 part iii. vol. 18. Trans. Linn. Soc, a paper was read on January 21, 1840, 

 from the late Mr. Francis Bauer, who stated that he had not detected the 

 fungus in his examination of ergot in the years 1805 to 1809, but that he had 

 observed it in 1838 ; yet, to use his own words, he still maintains, " I am not 

 yet convinced that these filamentous fungi with numerous sporidia are the 

 cause or the consequence ; because, 



" 1st, Every gramineous plant is equally infected with that minute filamentous 

 fungus, yet very few of these plants produce ergots ; and among agricultural 

 grains, the rye is the only one that is subject to that disease ; among the many 

 hundred ears of wheat that I examined in every stage of its growth, I found 



